Starlight Falling
by Rachel Hawkins
Summary: Tauriel wallows in devastation after the battle, not knowing that all hope may not be lost. AU. Spoilers for Battle of the Five Armies.
1. Chapter 1

How long did it take for one of the Eldar to fade into nothingness?

Tauriel felt as though she'd been fading for centuries, though in reality it was closer to minutes than years. Up here, on this cold plateau on Ravenhill, it seemed like a far different world than the one below, where every now and then the wind carried a sound to her, a whisper of the work that was going on in the wake of battle. The dead would be collected, counted, mourned. Those who had survived would quietly celebrate their own lives even as they shattered from the grief dealt to them by the loss of those they loved.

A fat pair of tears fought their way through her tightly-closed eyes to soak into the coat she lay on. Kili's coat. She stirred, propping herself up on her hands and opening her swollen eyes to look at him. His eyes were closed, and he was still. So terribly still. But of course he was. She lifted a hand to gently trail her fingertips across his cheek. There was still warmth in him. The heat had not yet faded from his body. How could he be gone?

She dropped her head to his chest and closed her eyes again. She didn't try to stop the tears. Perhaps the faster she let them fall, the faster she would fade. She didn't know what else to do but fade. She had nowhere to go, nothing to hold on to. In spite of the strange moment of almost-bonding that she had shared with Thranduil, he had mentioned nothing about allowing her to return to Mirkwood. He had banished her for defying his will, and given what had happened afterward, she supposed there was no way for him to rescind the banishment and save face with the rest of the Mirkwood elves. So her home was gone, and besides, how could she return there with Legolas gone? He had found her as she was and told her that he was leaving, that he couldn't go back to his life the way it had been before. She understood, all too well, that sometimes there was no going back.

She stretched out beside him, draped her arm across him. She pressed her cheek to the side of his chest and wished for nothing more than to fade.

That's how they found her, long minutes, or hours, later. Once the battle was over and the enemy spent, Bofur, Oin, and a badly injured Thorin had come looking for the missing Kili. Fili, clinging to life by a thread, had been left in the care of the others. Thorin, limping, breathing heavily, bleeding from a dozen wounds he refused to have treated, had led the search by sheer grit. He would not lose his nephews. It would not be allowed. When Dis arrived, and he knew she would, he would not tell her that he had failed to protect her sons.

The three dwarves, each exhausted from battle and nursing their own assortment of wounds, stood for a moment in stunned silence as they took in the scene before them, of the elf warrior curled against the fallen dwarf in what could not be mistaken for anything except grief. They had found Kili at last, but not how they had expected. The most vibrant of their motley group, he was far too still, far too quiet. It was not right. All of them had seen death before. They knew the look of it. And Kili's absolute stillness had the look of it. Thorin staggered, from his wounds, from shock, from grief. Bofur and Oin each took an arm, holding him on his feet.

The noise was enough to rouse Tauriel. She lifted her head, rapidly blinked her eyes until she saw the three dwarves standing before her. Bofur and Oin she recognized from Lake-town, though at the moment she could not remember their names. And the third man standing between them, ragged and bleeding but somehow still regal as grief washed over his face, could only be Thorin.

"I..." Her voice was rusty, her throat scraped dry by exhaustion and sorrow. She tried to swallow. "I tried...I couldn't...there was no athelas...I..."

"There now, there now," Oin murmured, letting go of Thorin's arm to step forward. Tauriel didn't see him; she saw only that Thorin fell to his knees, his gaze riveted on Kili. She looked down at him, tried to tell herself that her time with him was over now. But she couldn't move, couldn't make herself get up and leave. She couldn't let go.

"If there was anything to be done," Oin said, "you would have done it. I watched you do it once. I watched you save his life. And then you got us all out of Lake-town. If there was anything to be done, you would have done it."

It should have been impossible by now, but Tauriel felt more tears welling in her eyes. She watched as Thorin shook Bofur's arm off and surged forward. He dropped down again and gathered Kili close. He brushed Kili's hair from his forehead, tried to will him to open his eyes again. Nothing happened, and he turned eyes filled with fathomless grief to Tauriel.

The tears broke free and tracked down her cheeks as she staggered to her feet. "I'm sorry," she managed. "I'm so sorry."

She took several steps back as the three dwarves gathered around Kili. She started to turn away, but stopped when she felt the stone tucked into the small pouch at her waist. She pulled it out, brushed her thumb over the runes carved into the smooth stone. She closed her eyes, clutched it tightly in her fist. She wanted to take it, wanted to keep it. But it wasn't hers, not truly. She turned back, knelt beside Kili one last time. She reached for his hand, felt the bit of warmth that lingered there, in spite of the frigid air. She gently placed the stone in his palm and closed his fingers around it. She bent down, pressed her lips to his knuckles. A tear splashed down and rolled down the back of his hand.

And then, before anyone could say a word, she pushed to her feet and slowly walked away.

* * *

><p>Hours later, with the darkness of night chasing away the last remnants of light, Tauriel walked through the ruined streets of Dale like a wraith. She spoke to no one. She had spoken to no one since leaving the dwarves with Kili on Ravenhill.<p>

She walked through piles of rubble, through crumbling arches and ruined doorways. She felt eyes on her, thought a few people might have spoken to her, but she walked on as though they weren't there. She needed to get away from here, away from all of these people. She couldn't deal with them. Couldn't stand to see the families clinging together with joy that they'd survived. She didn't want to be surrounded by humanity, or sympathy or pity.

As if anyone could understand her grief, the potential that had existed in what she'd lost.

Finally, she saw the gates up ahead. She was almost out of the city. She could skirt around Mirkwood and go…somewhere. She didn't know where. But there were plenty of forests in Middle Earth. She could find a new home. She hoped.

There were ragged men in torn and bloody clothes guarding the gates, but they parted when they saw her approaching. She walked past them, her eyes skating over them, never settling in one spot. She was almost out. She was almost gone.

When she passed through to the other side of the gates, her heart gave a painful lurch that left her gasping for breath. She stopped and clutched a hand to her chest. Every step took her farther away from Kili. Every step led her toward a future where he didn't exist, where she would never see him again. She didn't want to imagine such a world, but what choice did she have?

She started walking again, ignoring the voice behind her that suddenly called out for her to stop. If she stopped she might never start again. Before she took more than a dozen steps, a man dashed in front of her, forcing her to halt. She looked up at him. He was tall, with dark hair to his shoulders pulled back away from his face. His clothes too were ragged, but there was a strength to him that spoke of command and responsibility.

"Your name is Tauriel, is it not?" the man asked.

She found she couldn't speak, so she simply looked up at him and waited for whatever he had to say to her. The sooner he said it, the sooner she could leave.

"My name is Bard. My children said that back in Lake-town our home was attacked by Orcs, and that two elves came. Legolas, King Thranduil's son, and a red-haired woman elf named Tauriel. The elves killed the Orcs inside and saved them and the dwarves who were sheltering there. My daughter Sigrid said that Legolas left, but that you stayed, and healed the sick dwarf with elvish magic. And then when the dragon came, you helped get them out. You saved their lives."

"What do you want from me?" was all she could manage to say.

Bard frowned slightly. "I want only to give you my deepest thanks. You watched over my children, and keeping them safe is a debt I can never repay you for. If there is anything I can do, anything that will help begin to settle what I owe you, you have only to name it."

"You owe me nothing," she said. "I've done nothing deserving of praise."

"I disagree, but just know that you are welcome here. Any time, for however long you would like to stay. Anything else you may need, provisions, or weapons, if we have them, they are yours."

There was a look in his eye that told Tauriel he knew her circumstances, that some witness had told him of Thranduil's banishment. It was pity she saw in his eyes, and she wanted none of it. "The welfare of your people depends in large part on trade with the Woodland Realm, over which Thranduil is king. Helping me would only harm your standing with him. There is nothing I need from you."

Watching her but saying nothing, he reached down and picked up the bundle he had laid on a pile of rubble nearby. He presented her with a bow, and a stiff leather quiver full of arrows. "You appear to be missing your bow. My children said you had one in Lake-town. Please take these. They are not of finely-crafted Elvish make, but they are solid and strong and will serve you well wherever you decide to go."

She wanted to refuse, almost did so. But he was right. Her bow was gone, the one she had possessed for time uncounted. The bow she had drawn on Thranduil to stop him from turning a blind eye on the suffering of the people around him. The very people she was walking away from now. She looked up at Bard. This was a man of strength, one who could help his people rebuild and live decent lives. A man of loyalty who would stop at nothing to keep those he loved safe. This was a man who had literally slayed a dragon to save his people. "I could use a bow," she managed. "Mine was…lost in battle."

He nodded, as though he didn't know the truth, and held out his arms. She took the bow from him, tested it and found that it was indeed solid. She took the quiver from him and hooked it onto her belt. "Thank you. I'm glad your children are safe."

"As am I. If you decide to come back, to here or to Lake-town, know that you will always have a place."

She nodded, and turned away before her eyes could fill again. She would take the bow, but she could cope with no further kindness. She walked away from the town, and into the morass of an endless life untethered by anything or anyone she had known before.

* * *

><p>"Thorin! Thorin! Somebody has to find Thorin! We need him!"<p>

Bofur careened dangerously around a corner and knocked into a cluster of dwarves, sending them into an ungainly pile on the ground in the hall of kings. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Bofur called as he spun around and jumped over them. "Must find Thorin!"

He ran through the hall, intent on his mission. A number of dwarves called out to him as he ran, but he ignored them. His heart would not stop pounding. He had to get to Thorin. Nothing else mattered.

He finally found him near the gates, discussing repairs with Dain and several others who had come down from the Iron Hills. "Thorin!" he shouted, pushing through the group of dwarves until he stood face to face with their king. "Thorin, you must come quickly. You must come now."

"What is it, Bofur?" Thorin asked, impatience in his gaze. "Has Fili awoken?"

"No, indeed he hasn't, although Oin says his breathing is better. He wants me to find kingsfoil, although he said it would be better if we had an elf to help us. But no, this is not about Fili. Thorin, it's about Kili."

"What about him?" Thorin asked, covering his grief with a bracing wash of annoyance and anger. "I told you I wanted him prepared and ready for when Dis arrives. That is all I've asked of you. Is it done?"

"No, my king, it is not. But that is because—"

Thorin cursed. "I do not doubt your loyalty, Bofur. You have traveled and fought all along this road with us. You went into battle at my side yesterday just like everyone else. But now that it is time for us to grieve our dead and start rebuilding our lives, you refuse to do the one thing I have asked of you. A task you said you would be honored to complete. So tell me why—"

"Kili is alive," Bofur interrupted. "I have not prepared his body for the pyre because he is not dead."

Thorin's arm whipped out, his hand gripping Bofur's shoulder hard enough to bruise. "What did you say?"

"Kili is alive," Bofur repeated, struggling not to wince under Thorin's punishing grip.

"If you are toying with me, I swear you will regret it."

"Oin and I were preparing to dress him in his armor, but we saw him take a breath. Oin said he is alive. Barely alive, but still, he is not dead yet."

Thorin released his grip on Bofur's shoulder and took off at a loping run. He ignored the fiery pain in his injured foot, and the dozen other injuries that ached and pulled. None of them mattered. He barreled through the hall of kings and into the large chamber, which had survived relatively unscathed, where Oin had set up a number of pallets on which to treat the many wounded dwarves. Thorin scanned the room, then marched to the far end where Fili and Kili lay side by side. Oin leaned over Kili, his ear close to Kili's mouth.

"What is happening?" Thorin demanded.

"He took a breath," Oin said. "He appeared to be dead. We all thought he was dead. But he must have been breathing all along, only too softly and slowly for us to notice."

"Is he going to live? Is he going to recover?"

"There is no way to know. He has a serious wound in his side. It bled heavily, and he sustained numerous other wounds as well. It is a miracle that he is still alive. I've sent Bofur to search for athelas, which may help. It would be better if we could find Tauriel. She healed him once, but nobody has seen her since Ravenhill."

"Do you really think she could help him? Help Fili too?"

"Back in Lake-town, we almost lost Kili to the Orc wound he suffered at Mirkwood. He would not have survived it if not for Tauriel."

Thorin nodded. "We will send out parties to search. If she plans to return to Mirkwood, she will have to go through Dale first. Somebody must have seen her. And if they have, we will see that they tell us what they know of her whereabouts. We will bring her here to help them."

"And if she does not want to come back here?" Oin asked.

Thorin looked back at Kili. In his mind he went back to Ravenhill. He remembered the moment they had come upon Kili, with Tauriel curled against his side and weeping onto his chest. He thought of the animosity he'd felt toward the elves since the day Smaug had swooped in, destroyed Dale and seized their home and his birthright. He thought of Thranduil turning his back on his people's suffering. In the whole of his life, he had not a single pleasant memory involving an elf.

But he did know grief, he knew suffering, he knew pain. All of those things had been in Tauriel's eyes when they'd found her with Kili. And they had been real. He would bet his life on it. That sort of grief could not be feigned.

He closed his eyes. To think, his young, impetuous nephew in love with an elf, and the possibility that love had been returned. He wanted to deny it, to thrash and yell and bemoan the very idea that a dwarf he had helped raise since childhood could fall in love with one of his enemies. A part of him was infuriated, and he wanted to shake Kili awake so he could knock him senseless again. It could not be allowed, he told himself. A dwarf in his company would not be permitted to associate with anyone of Thranduil's ilk. It was impossible.

But he also remembered the dungeons of Mirkwood, and the conversation the elf had shared with Kili that night. He hadn't caught all of the words, but the cadence of their voices had drifted back to him. There had been no animosity between them. There had been caution, but there had also been connection. It had troubled him in those quiet hours, until Bilbo had set them free and he'd had other things to worry about.

Now, staring down at the deathly pale face of his youngest nephew, he could not help but remember the sight of the two curled together in the cold of Ravenhill. Her grief had been real. And if the rumors he'd begun hearing were true, that Thranduil had banished her for defying his will by helping Kili and the rest of his kin, then perhaps he owed her better than blind hatred.

"She will come," he said to Oin. "Wherever she has gone, if we find her and tell her that Kili still lives and needs her help, she will come."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Tauriel decided to stay the night in the ruins of Lake-town. She did not have the energy to go any further. She had her own injuries to tend to, injuries she had ignored in the long hours that had passed in what she could only call a nightmarish haze.

She leaned her new bow against the wall and set her quiver on a table. The house she had chosen as her temporary shelter was not completely unfamiliar. It belonged to Bard. She'd chosen it because she knew it, and because it was one of the few that had survived Smaug's wrath intact. Or mostly intact. She glanced up at the roof, the ragged holes that had been left by the attacking Orcs. Cold filtered in, settling in her bones, but she barely noticed. She rested a hand on the table where Kili had lain so she could heal him from the agony of the Morgul poison. For all the good it had done.

Her heart gave another painful kick. He couldn't be gone. Not a man so vibrant, a man who could joke in the heart of the Mirkwood dungeons. Not a man who had, ever so briefly, given her something she'd never imagined having. She had lived more than six hundred years, and she had never felt a connection to anyone the way she had felt connected to Kili. Not even Legolas. There was kinship and deep affection there, but what she had begun to feel for Kili was something different. Something altogether more immediate and terrifying.

_If this is love_, she had told Thranduil, _I don't want it._

She lit only a single lamp, and by its meager light gathered strips of cloth and a bowl of water to begin cleaning her wounds. She ached in a hundred places, was bruised in a hundred more, but not even all of the wounds together were enough to take her life.

She dropped the strip of cloth she held and slid down to the floor. She leaned back against the wall. She lifted her hands, saw the dirt and blood smudged across the backs of them. She let them drop into her lap and closed her eyes. She was so tired. Tired and alone. There was nothing else alive in this ruined town. People would be back eventually, to salvage supplies, to rebuild. Bard had implied as much earlier. But for now, she was alone, and she thought it fitting that she begin the rest of her life amidst the charred ruins of Esgaroth. For it was here, she thought, that she had begun to admit to herself the strength of her feelings for Kili. She had begun to imagine, and want, a different sort of life.

A life she would never have.

She opened her eyes, looked up through the ruined roof and saw stars high overhead. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the stars seemed brighter tonight. More vibrant. Almost alive. As if the stars themselves were celebrating the end of the battle.

She pushed herself to her feet and stepped out onto the balcony. She stared up at a sky that sparkled with countless stars. It was a sight that should have filled her heart. It was the sacred light of her people on full display. But instead she felt only an empty well in the space where her heart should have been. Kili was up there now amongst those stars. There could be no other reason for their brightness.

She dropped her gaze. Kili didn't belong in the starlight, not yet. He should have been here beside her, staring up and soaking in the beauty. They should have had a chance. They deserved a chance.

She turned away, dashing the wetness from her cheeks as she went back inside. She wished suddenly that she had kept the rune stone after all. It would be a tangible piece of him she could hold onto, a memory in her hand during the long years to come. Her fingers curled as if holding it now. She wanted a piece of him. She wanted _him_.

She went back inside, extinguished the lamp, and slid back to the floor to endure the long night to come.

* * *

><p>"I think I'd like to stay here sometime," Bofur said as they walked through the ruined streets of Dale. "You know, once they fix it up and all."<p>

Dwalin shook his head. "I'll stick to Erebor. Plenty to do there. I remember it, before Smaug. Never thought I'd see it again, I can tell you that much."

"I wish Bilbo had stayed. Thorin could use the friend right now. Perhaps Bilbo could convince him to let his wounds be treated."

"Thorin won't let a soul near him until Fili and Kili are out of danger. And for that to happen, we have to find the elf."

"I know you don't want to trust her," Bofur said. "And before now I never would have imagined myself trusting an elf. But you didn't see her heal Kili in Lake-town. A wonder, it was. And you didn't see her at Ravenhill. I've never seen the like before. An elf warrior weeping over a fallen dwarf. Had we not come upon her, I think she would have stayed there until she froze to death."

"No indeed, I've never seen the like," Dwalin said. And still he found it hard to believe. Elves didn't help dwarves without a reason. And even when there was a reason, such as a dragon chasing them from their rightful home, elves still didn't help. That was what he'd seen, that was what he knew. But if Thorin wanted them to bring the elf woman to Erebor, that's what they would do.

They found Bard wrapping a blanket around his younger daughter in the shelter they'd found near the center of Dale. "A visit from Erebor in the middle of the night," Bard said when he stepped outside. "The Orc armies are defeated. Surely there is not more trouble already."

"No trouble, not of that sort," Bofur said. "We are looking for the elf woman, Tauriel. Have you seen her?"

"An elf needed at Erebor? Why do I find that hard to believe?"

"You are not the only one," Dwalin muttered.

Bofur threw him a frustrated glare before turning back to Bard. "She knows the healing magic of her kind. Fili and Kili both hover near death. Thorin himself has serious injuries he refuses to let anyone see to until his nephews are safe. We need her help to save them. Please, have you seen her?"

Bard looked down at the two dwarves. One surly, one desperate, but both willing to travel through the night in search of help for their kin.

And indeed, he had heard tell of Tauriel's healing magic. Once he had found suitable shelter for his children, they had regaled him with tales of what had happened at their home in Lake-town. Even if he couldn't picture it himself, he believed their tales of her healing light and the lyrical cadence of the Sindarin healing words. And besides, he had stood before the woman himself. He had seen devastation in her eyes, the kind of devastation he'd felt when he'd lost his wife so many years ago.

"Aye, she came through here several hours ago. She would not stay, and she did not say where she intended to go from here."

Bofur and Dwalin shared a look. "If she is headed for Mirkwood," Dwalin said, "she will need to go through what is left of Lake-town first."

"I do not think Mirkwood is her destination," Bard said.

"Why not?" Bofur wondered. "It is her home."

"Not anymore. Some of my people witnessed a confrontation on the shores after we fled Lake-town. A group of elves on horseback came, and told Legolas that King Thranduil had banished Tauriel from Mirkwood. So if not there, I have no way of knowing where she plans to go."

Bofur paced away, thinking. He remembered her as he'd last seen her. "She was injured on Ravenhill. I saw blood and wounds, and she limped a little when she left us. I do not think she would go far, not tonight. Perhaps she found shelter in Lake-town for the night."

"There is nothing left of Lake-town," Dwalin said. "She couldn't have gone there."

"There are buildings here and there that still stand," Bard corrected. "Most of the town is destroyed, but not all. We plan to begin salvaging what we can tomorrow."

"We need to go tonight," Bofur said. "There is no time to waste. Do you have a boat we can borrow? There is plenty of starlight to row by, and we do not know how much longer Fili and Kili have. Nori has taken over the search for whatever kingsfoil can be found, but we need Tauriel."

"Wait here," Bard said after a moment, and ducked back inside. Bofur and Dwalin heard him murmuring softly to his children, and then he was back, a bow and quiver in his hands. "I'll go with you. I know Lake-town, and I can survey the damage while we look for her."

"You would help us?" Dwalin asked.

"Aye. I owe Tauriel a debt, even if she does not want to accept my payment. If she risked banishment once to save this dwarf of yours, I imagine she would want to do it again."

* * *

><p>The dreams came and went like waves of a fever. Tauriel saw Kili smiling, then she saw him dying. She saw him placing the rune stone in her hand, then she saw Bolg plunging a ragged blade into him. She saw him staring at her through the bars of his cell in the Mirkwood dungeons while she spoke of starlight, and then she saw him still and broken on the plateau of Ravenhill.<p>

Her eyes flashed open suddenly, her heart thundering. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, groaning when a dozen untreated injuries began aching anew. She dragged dirty hands over a dirty face. She could not continue on like this. The physical aches would heal with time, but she would not survive these terrible dreams night after night. Her heart ached from them, both the good images and the bad. How was she supposed to get them out of her head, and how would she survive if she did? The thought of forgetting Kili hurt just as badly as remembering him did.

She braced a hand against the wall and stood. It was still dark, the night not yet spent. She did not know how long she had slept, but knew that no more sleep would be coming. She stepped out onto the walkway again to stretch sore muscles. She would start moving immediately. Perhaps distance was the answer. The further she traveled, the further away the pain would be. She would head north, skirting along the edges of Mirkwood, then go west past Ered Mithrin and over the Misty Mountains. She could settle in the forests surrounding Ered Luin; she supposed that most of the dwarves living there would probably return to Erebor once news reached them that it had been reclaimed.

Or if not, there was Eryn Vorn to the south, which was rumored to be mostly abandoned. And if that did not work, she would find somewhere else. All she knew for certain was that she could not stay here. The memories were too painful. So she would scrub the dirt from her skin, treat her wounds, and leave this place.

She turned to go back inside and froze. There was a noise in the air, footsteps climbing the stairs on the other side of the house. She reached for the dagger still sheathed at her hip. She had retrieved it from a dead Orc's chest on her way back down Ravenhill yesterday. Now, she clutched it in her hand and edged toward the door. Who else would be here in the middle of the night except for scavengers? Well, they had chosen the wrong house to loot, she thought, her blood beginning to thrum in her veins.

She peeked around the doorway and saw a tall figure enter the house. She tightened her grip on her blade. The man stepped in, then paused when he noticed the bowl of water and pile of rags she had left on the table. He turned to look toward her, and she saw that he had a bow in his hand. She acted before he could raise it. She whirled into the doorway and sprang toward him, leading with her dagger. He dropped his bow and reached out, clasping a hand around her wrist and blocking her swipe.

In a move faster than he could anticipate, she spun around and flipped him onto his back, straddling him and pressing the tip of her blade against his throat.

"Stop, I mean you no harm," he said, holding his hands out for her to see. She paused. She had heard that voice before, and recently. She leaned back, and the moonlight filtering in through the ruined roof revealed none other than Bard.

She scrambled back and dropped the dagger to her side. "I was not expecting anyone," she said. "I intended to be gone long before anyone returned here."

Bard rubbed a hand across his throat, surprised and relieved that she had not broken the skin with her blade. "I'll be staying in Dale with my children for the winter," he said. "You are welcome here for as long as you need."

"I'll be leaving immediately," she answered. "I only—"

Before she could say another word, she heard boots thundering up the stairs outside. She whirled into a battle stance and drew her blade. Two shorter figures barreled in, one wielding an axe, the other a short sword. Tauriel lunged forward, but Bard stepped in front of her and halted her momentum. "Everybody calm down. There is no threat here."

"Looks like a threat to me," the axe-wielder said.

"You are mistaken," Bard replied, holding his hands out in a plea for Tauriel to stay her attack. He stepped across the room and lit a pair of lamps. The room filled with warm light, and Tauriel saw that the two attackers were in fact dwarves, one of whom she recognized. He had been here in this room with Kili and the others, and he had been at Ravenhill.

It was this one who dropped his weapon first. "Lady Tauriel, we have been looking for you all night. I am Bofur, and this is Dwalin."

"I am nobody's lady. What do you want?"

"We need your help," he said earnestly, pleadingly. "Please, we must hurry."

"I have no help to give," she said tiredly, sheathing her dagger. "You will have to look elsewhere." She turned away from him and grabbed a few of the cloth strips she had intended to use to cleanse her wounds. She stuffed them into the pouch that had once held Kili's rune stone. She had to get out of here. She could not stand the sight of the dwarves, of Kili's kin.

"Wait, wait!" Bofur said when she pushed past them and through the doorway. "You can't leave. Kili needs your help!"

Tauriel froze, her foot poised over the first step of the rickety staircase. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, she turned back toward the door. "What did you say?"

"Kili needs your help," Bofur repeated.

"Kili is dead," she said, and thought she might shatter at having to say the words aloud. Tears welled, and she shoved them ruthlessly back. "I don't know what kind of cruel trickery you think to play here, but I will not be a part of it. I was there!" she cried, her voice rising dangerously. "I was there at Ravenhill. I saw that bastard Bolg plunge a blade into him. I knelt beside him, and he was dead. I was there." She finished quietly, near a whisper, and fat tears that would not be stopped dripped down her cheeks.

The room was silent, the three men made momentarily speechless by Tauriel's fresh anger and grief. It was Dwalin who was the most surprised. He had not truly believed what he'd been told. He had believed that Thorin's insistence that they find her came from grief and fever from his own wounds. But now, watching the elf woman angrily dash away tears, he began to believe. He didn't like it, the thought of elves and dwarves together, but if it would save Fili and Kili, and by extension Thorin, he would see her back to Erebor.

"You can take your lies and leave me be," Tauriel said. "I want no part of them."

"We do not lie!" Bofur insisted, rushing to keep up with her as she hurried down the stairs. "They live! Kili and Fili both. But they hover near death, and Oin cannot save them alone. Tauriel, we need you. Kili needs you."

"If it's gold you want," Dwalin said from the top of the stairs, "then name your price and Thorin will see that you have it."

"I don't want your gold," she spat. "I want to be left alone."

"I swear to you we tell the truth," Bofur said again. "Please, Tauriel, you have to come with us. Kili will not survive without your help."

Tauriel stood still, frozen with doubt and with a longing so intense her knees began to shake. She wanted, with everything she had, to believe it was true. But she had been there at Ravenhill. She had lain with her head on his chest and had not felt him take a breath. And her hope for the long future had died with him.

She drew a dagger suddenly and pushed Bofur back against the wall, leveling the blade against his throat. "If you are lying to me," she growled, "if this is some kind of trick or trap, I will see your life ended, even if it means the end of mine."

"There is no trick, there is no trap," Bofur said, carefully sliding to the side and away from the tip of her blade. He had always believed that elves were dangerous, but had also believed that they were cold, emotionless and without compassion. Now he knew differently. There was a wealth of danger in Tauriel, but there was more emotion swirling in her than he could have imagined.

"We'll go now," Tauriel said, striding toward the nearby dock where she had left the rowboat she had taken from Dale. "If what you say is true, then there is no time to waste."

In a haze of fear and hope, Tauriel climbed into the boat. She looked up and saw Bard standing in his doorway while Bofur and Dwalin climbed in behind her. She held his gaze for a moment, then turned to grab an oar. For the second time, she forced herself to control her panic as she left the ruins of Lake-town. She heard nothing the dwarves might have said to her as they rowed out onto the lake. She heard only the three words that kept repeating in her head, over and over again.

_Kili is alive_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Let me look at your foot while we wait," Oin said, watching as Thorin paced, or more accurately limped, back and forth in front of the cots that held Fili and Kili.

"You can look at it once my nephews are awake," Thorin grumbled. He looked at them, frowned. Neither of them had stirred for as long as he'd been there. He had not left the room in more than half a day, he thought. Far too long. If they had to wait for the elf much longer, he feared it would be too late for any of them.

"It has been almost a full day," Oin said. "If you do not let me see to your wounds, they could fester."

"I know how long it has been. You may see to my wounds when she sees to theirs," Thorin insisted. "But not before. I will not see to my comfort at the expense of their lives."

Oin subsided, knowing there would be no reasoning with Thorin in his current mood. It was not dragon sickness that had him now, but worry and grief, which were their own powerful force. And he knew that even with the baskets of kingsfoil Nori had brought back several hours ago, his skills were not enough to heal the lads. They needed Tauriel. So he worried, and he grieved as well.

Back at the gates, where dawn had lightened the sky, a murmur started amongst the dwarves who had set to work clearing and repairing the damage that had been done not only in battle, but by Smaug as well. To a man they stopped what they were doing and stared down into the valley where two horses galloped closer. The smaller of the two held Dwalin and Bofur. In the lead was a majestic brown horse, on its back an elf woman with streaming red hair.

Tauriel reigned her horse in and jumped down, grabbing her bow and waiting impatiently for the two dwarves to catch up. She was a riot of emotions, her heart beating so fast she felt faintly ill, but outwardly she was calm. There were a couple dozen dwarves about, and she would not lose control of herself in front of them the way she had at Bard's home in Lake-town. She would hold herself together, find Kili, and see what she saw.

"If we need to hurry, why aren't you hurrying?" she asked when the two dwarves joined her.

Dwalin only grunted.

"We'll take you to them now," Bofur said, indeed hurrying now, only slowing when several dwarves blocked them from passing through the gates. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Let us pass. We have no time to waste."

"You want us to let an elf pass through these gates?" someone asked. "And one of Thranduil's, no doubt." He sneered at Tauriel. "Thorin would have you skinned for this."

"We brought her here at Thorin's insistence," Dwalin said.

"Thorin would never allow an elf through his gates."

Tauriel had waited long enough, and had no patience for this man's ignorance. She stepped forward, took his coat in her fist, and hauled him up onto his toes. "Do you want Kili to die?" she asked. "His brother as well? If not, then I suggest you move out of the way."

She settled the matter by shoving him aside and striding through the gates.

"You cannot enter Erebor with weapons," the dwarf stated plaintively, doing what he could to save face.

"Try and stop me," Tauriel muttered. There was no chance she was going to enter these hostile halls without weapons.

Her strides were long, and while Dwalin peeled off to go about other business, Bofur had to hurry to catch up to her. He took her through long corridors and huge halls, past clusters of dwarves who stopped and stared as she went past. And what a sight she made. The tall elf warrior, clearly comfortable with the weapons she carried, still streaked and splattered with dirt and blood from a battle a day past. They mistook the look in her eyes as coldness and disdain. They did not know her well enough to know that the remoteness of her gaze masked a deep lingering fear with panic licking at the edges. Not fear of the dwarves, but rather fear _for_ a particular dwarf.

They traversed long staircases and halls before coming to a stop at a large pair of doors. "They're inside," Bofur said. "Oin has been treating all of the injured here."

"Then why are we waiting?" She pushed the doors open and went inside. Her heart thudding, she frantically scanned the large room, and when she spotted him at the far end she nearly fell to her knees. Her bow fell from numb fingers and she found herself moving forward, past a dozen or more dwarves who had gone silent at her entrance. She saw only Kili, was intent only on reaching him. But her path was blocked again, and this time she could not simply grab his coat and move him aside. For this was no ordinary dwarf.

This was Thorin Oakenshield.

* * *

><p>Thorin stared at Tauriel, waited for her to tear her gaze from Kili and look at him. He wondered if she even realized that a solitary tear had fallen down her already streaked and dirty cheek. When she finally looked down at him, he had decided what he wanted to say.<p>

"I don't like having elves in my halls. I have never had reason to trust an elf. But if you can save their lives, there is nothing in this world that I will not give you in return."

"I don't want your gold, I don't want your thanks," she murmured, her eyes tracking back to Kili. "I only want him to live."

Oin stepped up beside Thorin. "We have kingsfoil. All of it you could need." He gestured to several baskets of the plant sitting on a table between Fili and Kili. "We have water, and bowls for mixing. We have clean cloths for binding wounds. Anything else you need, we will find."

Tauriel took a moment to steady herself and looked back at Thorin. "I can make no promises," she forced herself to say. "But if it is in my power, I will bring him back. I will not stop trying." _Until my own final breath_, she added silently.

"They are my own blood," Thorin said. "They are my sister's sons."

"And he is…" She didn't know what to call him, she realized. She didn't know how to define what she felt to him, not out loud to Thorin at least. She had spilled it out to Thranduil amidst tears and ruin, but to say it now…the words stuck in her throat, blocked by fear and a terrible hope. "If the Valar give me strength, he will wake again."

She took a slow, deep breath, and prepared herself. "Everyone who is able needs to leave," she said to Thorin.

"These men are injured."

"And Elvish medicine is not a magical spectacle," she replied. "I did not come here as fodder for entertainment and gossip. I came here, knowing that most if not all of those gathered here despise me for what I am, but that doesn't matter if I can save Kili's life. Nothing else matters. But I am asking you to send everyone else away while I try to save him."

After a long moment, Thorin apparently satisfied himself with what he saw in her eyes. He nodded to Oin, who along with Bofur coaxed the other injured dwarves from their cots and took them out of the room. The doors closed behind them, leaving a resounding quiet in their wake. Tauriel closed her eyes briefly, prayed to the Valar for strength.

She took a bundle of athelas and began stripping its branches, letting the tiny leaves fall into a bowl. "Show me the wound in his belly," she said without looking up at Thorin, who she had never expected to follow the rest of the dwarves out of the room.

While she added a little water to the bowl and crushed the leaves with her fingers, Thorin opened Kili's tunic and removed the bandages and kingsfoil poultice that Oin had placed there. Tauriel stared down at the vicious, ugly wound while Thorin moved to the other side of the cot to give her room. The wound should have killed him, she thought. She shuddered, remembering the way Bolg had waited until she was watching to plunge his blade in deep. She met Thorin's eyes. "I have not known him long," she said quietly, "but he means a great deal to me. Whatever has happened since I met him, he has given me something that I have never had in six hundred years. I do not regret that."

Thorin only nodded, any reply he might have made stuck in his throat. He looked down at Kili, who had not stirred. His impetuous, sometimes foolish, but always brave young nephew. He watched for a blink, a sign that he was coming back to life, but found his eyes drawn back to Tauriel. She had packed the wound in Kili's belly with the paste of kingsfoil she had made and placed her hands over it. Now she chanted in her Elvish tongue, words he did not understand but that nonetheless drew him in and held him in thrall. She seemed to have forgotten he was there. At first her eyes were closed, her voice quiet. But shortly the tone lifted higher, and her eyes opened again to gaze down at Kili's still face. The rhythm of her words never faltered, looping and spiraling around him as a soft glow appeared around her. It brightened in seconds, enveloping them. It seemed to come from inside her, and he couldn't explain it, but he was mesmerized.

When the light began to fade, she dropped down to a knee and began murmuring near Kili's ear, the words still Elvish, but now her voice almost too quiet for Thorin to hear. She gently brushed her fingers across his forehead and Thorin looked away. This moment was not for him.

How could this be happening? he wondered. How could he be sympathizing with an elf? He had spent a lifetime hating elves and all they stood for. Hating their coldness, hating their disregard for anyone but themselves. Now he'd invited an elf into his home, the home elves had once refused to help him reclaim, and was feeling sympathy for her as she attempted to heal his nephews' grievous wounds. His own wounds ached. His foot, mangled by Azog's sword, burned like icy fire, but he would not ask her to help him when she was done. He could not. His pride would not allow it.

He pressed a hand against his chest and winced. The wound in his foot was not his only wound. Azog's blade had penetrated his armor, and it was coming to the point where he could no longer hide it. He felt cold, and he thought it had started bleeding again. He flexed his fingers. They were shaking now. He would not be able to stay on his feet much longer. But he had to hold on until Fili and Kili were safe. He had to know his nephews would survive.

Tauriel stood up, bracing a hand on the edge of Kili's cot. Exhaustion was beginning to creep in, but she was not done yet. She should rest first, she knew that. But she couldn't. She had to help Fili before she could rest. It was what Kili would want. She had witnessed the loyalty between them. It had struck a chord in her. She had felt loyalty before, to Legolas, to her people, but what she had witnessed between the dwarf brothers was different. It was pure, natural, and she craved it for herself.

She stepped over to Fili's cot and looked down at him. She saw a quick rise of his chest, but she sensed something else in him. She sensed that he was close to fading. He had rallied, but his energy was almost spent.

"Where are his wounds?" she asked Thorin, reaching for the bowl of athelas she had prepared. When she received no answer, she turned and saw Thorin with a hand clutched to his chest. She frowned. "Where are his wounds?" she repeated.

Thorin shook his head, tried to shake the cobwebs from his mind, and turned to see Tauriel poised over Fili. "That Orc scum Azog stabbed him in the back."

"Help me turn him." Together they shifted Fili onto his side, revealing a hideous, ragged wound in his back. Tauriel's breath left her in a rush. "I don't know if I can…" she whispered. She closed her eyes. She had the gift of healing, but she had always spent more time fighting, more time in battle. She was a warrior, not a healer. She wondered if she had the strength for this, if saving two men so near death was even possible for one healer.

Possible or not, she had to try. She took a deep breath as she opened her eyes. And, taking more of the athelas in her hands, she went to work.

* * *

><p>When it was done Tauriel staggered back, exhausted. She did not know if she had done enough. She did not know if Fili would live. But there was nothing more she could do now.<p>

Thorin leaned heavily against the edge of Fili's cot. He did not look good, and Tauriel was worried. "Are you…"

"I am fine," Thorin grumbled before she could finish. "I do not need your help."

"You do not look fine," she pushed, for Kili's sake. If—when—he woke, she did not want it to be to a world where Thorin was dead.

"I do not want your help!" Thorin turned and glared at her. His face was pale and sheened with sweat. Even in her exhaustion Tauriel could see something was wrong. "I did not have you brought here to stand over me like a nursemaid. You are here for Fili and Kili. That is all."

"I was not _brought_ here," she said, irritation punching a hole through her fatigue. "I came here of my own choice. Kili tried to help me on Ravenhill, and suffered for it. I owe him. I…" She looked back at him, and the magnitude of her feelings for him rolled through her. "I wanted to come," she finished.

She looked at Thorin again. "I was not here before, when Smaug came and took this place from you. I had no part in Thranduil's decision to refuse your people aid. You can hate me if that is your choice, but you should know that I am not like him. And I owe him no allegiance now."

"And who do you owe allegiance to? His son, Legolas?"

"I choose my own allegiances now. And I don't intend to give my loyalty to anyone who does not deserve it."

"Just like an elf," Thorin said, and had to tighten his grip on the cot so he didn't fall. Blackness was starting to cloud his vision. It made him angry, and a small part of him was frightened that if he closed his eyes he might not open them again. And so he lashed out at the only convenient target in the room. He ignored the fact that she had come here and used skills none of his people possessed, for the sole purpose of saving the lives of his nephews. He ignored the fact that he had intended to give her a chance without judgment. He let himself forget that she could have ignored their pain and turned her back, as so many had before. Azog and Bolg were dead, but the suffering they had wrought lived on, and he had no one else to blame.

"Is it the gems you want?" he asked. "Can your loyalty be purchased with jewels and gold? Thranduil seems to have an affinity for white gems."

"I am not Thranduil, and I will not say it again. I do not want your gold, and I do not want your jewels. I want Kili safe. I want him well. I want to see him smile again. I want…" She looked down at Kili. "I want to again hear him say the words he said to me before he rowed away from the wreckage of Esgaroth."

"But you would take it, wouldn't you?" Thorin asked, his voice wavering. "You would take the gold and gems if offered."

"I do not want—"

There was a crash behind her. She whirled, and saw Thorin on the ground between the two cots. She crouched beside him, could not tell if he was breathing. "Oin, Bofur!" she called, one by one releasing the fastenings of Thorin's coat.

The door at the far end of the room opened, and rapid footsteps brought the two dwarves to her side. "What happened?" Oin demanded.

"He fell. I think he has been concealing injuries." She opened his coat, and the two dwarves gasped. Much of the front of his shirt was red, sodden bandages placed haphazardly not stopping the flow of blood. She eased them away, and they all saw the angry gash in his chest. Bad, she thought. Worse than the others. He had not used any of the athelas. He had done almost nothing to staunch the flow of blood.

"I need more athelas," she said, and stumbled when she got up to get it herself. She shook her head to clear it.

"You are exhausted," Bofur said. "Perhaps you should wait…"

"We can pack the wound with kingsfoil," Oin said. "It will buy him time."

Tauriel shook her head. "He is out of time. He has spent an entire day neglecting to treat a wound that should have been fatal. If I do not help him now, he will die for certain."

She took the bowl and sprig of athelas herself, stripping the leaves as fast as her shaking fingers would allow her. She should not do this. There were a dozen reasons she should tell the dwarves there was nothing she could do for their leader. His wounds were too severe. She was already exhausted from attempting to heal not one, but two of his kin. She had never known a healer to attempt to heal three men near death at once. She did not know what might happen to her if she tried. But how could she not? The fear and devastation on the faces of the dwarves was clear. They were not prepared to lose their leader. The same could be said for Kili and Fili, when they woke up, as she had to believe they would.

And for all his flaws, Thorin did not deserve to die.

"We'll need fresh cloth, fresh bandages," she said as she crushed the leaves. "Water for cleansing when I'm finished. He will need fresh clothing." When she was ready, and as much of the blood as possible had been wiped away, she pressed athelas into the wound and laid her hands over it.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Oin asked from beside her.

For long seconds she stared at him in silence. But when she began to speak, it was not in reply. Her words were the Sindarin healing words, and she spoke them for Thorin. Spoke them for the man who loved his nephews enough to invite one of his sworn enemies into his home to help them. And in a way, she spoke them for Kili as well. She wanted him to have his uncle. She wanted him to have his family.

Her light began to glow, but it was fainter, weaker than before. She did not have much left. But she fought through her exhaustion, kept going. She swayed, and felt one of the dwarves place a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Her vision faded, and she blinked rapidly to bring it back. She tried to keep going. She spoke to Thorin in Sindarin and pleaded with him to hold on for Kili and Fili. She pleaded with the Valar to help her save a good man.

Her vision faded again, and she could not bring it back this time. Dizziness overwhelmed her and she slumped to the side, collapsing onto the ground near Thorin. She heard Bofur and Oin calling her name, but she could not reply. Her eyes closed, her light diminished. Her energy was utterly spent, and with a final sigh she faded and knew no more that day.

And Kili opened his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Kili was caught in the midst of the worst nightmare of his life. He was stuck on the freezing slopes of Ravenhill, helpless to get to Tauriel as Bolg battered her into pieces. He could do nothing but listen to her sharp cries as she was pushed back toward the edge of the cliff.

And when the tide turned and Bolg focused on him, Tauriel was too broken to reach him before Bolg plunged a blade into his gut. They stared at each other across the frozen abyss, and he died unable to reach her.

He wanted the nightmare to go away. The thought of them both dying up there on Ravenhill, unable to reach each other, was agonizing.

Over and over this loop played in his mind. _Is this death_, he wondered, _or have I just gone mad?_

Finally, finally, a light pierced through the darkness of his mind. The voice was oh-so-faint at first, but he reached for it, yearned for it, and when he found it, he found Tauriel. She stood over him, bathed in light. Her words were Elvish—he was going to have to convince her to teach it to him—but they were beautiful, and they had the power to calm his agony and bring him back from the brink of death.

They were in Bard's home in Lake-town, and when he felt her fingers curl lightly around his, he thought that he had nearly everything he had ever wanted.

The images faded, but Tauriel's voice continued on, and he found himself back in Mirkwood's dungeons. Tauriel was just there on the other side of the bars, holding his rune stone up to the light. She'd surprised him by giving it back to him, and when their fingers brushed it had sparked something in him. He had believed, in that moment, that there was more to their story together than bars and locked doors.

She had accepted his rune stone when he gave it to her after Lake-town, and he'd told her it was a promise. Their story was not over. Bolg would not be the end of them. He would banish the Orc scum from his mind, and he would make it back to Tauriel this time.

Her voice remained in his head, but now it felt…closer, not so much a dream. He realized he felt remnants of pain, and was exhausted deep in his bones, but he was no longer fighting against a mire of hazy clouds. He was…alive. It was not death he had felt, but a near thing that left him floating in a nightmare world where shadows lurked. Now he felt the warmth of braziers instead of the icy winds, and he heard Tauriel speaking in Elvish nearby.

He opened his eyes, needing to see her, needing to know he was no longer dreaming. She was not beside him as he'd wanted to believe, and he felt a crushing disappointment. But her voice was nearby.

"Tauriel…" he said, and his voice was so raspy and quiet that nobody heard him. He turned his head to the left and saw nothing. To the right, he saw a dream and a nightmare. Tauriel was there, kneeling over Thorin, who was sprawled on the ground, streaked with blood. Kili watched as Tauriel's voice faded away and she fell to the ground beside Thorin.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position. "_No_." He dragged his legs over the edge of the cot as Oin scrambled back to them from where he'd been gathering bandages. Kili gained his feet but stumbled immediately, still weak and dizzy. He braced a hand on the cot and reached down to his side, where the gash from Bolg's blade was still angry and red. He could not take his eyes from the scene before him. "Tauriel. Thorin. _No_."

Bofur turned at the sound of his voice. "Kili! You're awake. You're alive!" Bofur rose to embrace him, and Kili swayed from the force of it. "You need to stop this habit of yours of nearly dying," Bofur told him.

"I hope to," Kili managed. "What is this? What is happening here? Have we won the battle?"

"Aye, we have won, and we are back in Erebor. You have been near death since yesterday."

"And Thorin? Fili?" he asked, looking over to where he'd seen his brother lying.

"Fili survived his injuries," Bofur said, "and Tauriel healed him after you, though he has not yet awoken. And Thorin…" They looked down at him.

Oin looked up from his task of binding Thorin's wounds. "He hid this from us," he said, his voice rough. "He hid the seriousness of his injuries from us until he could no longer stay on his feet. Tauriel tried to help him, but she was spent already. I do not know if it was enough. And then she fell…"

Kili sank to his knees beside Tauriel. He rolled her onto her back and held her head in his lap. "Wake up, Tauriel," he whispered, brushing his knuckles over her cheek. "You do not get to do this. You cannot die, not now. Not after everything." He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips to her forehead, then looked back up at Bofur. "How did Tauriel get here? I was with her on Ravenhill. That Orc…she was injured. How did she come to be at Erebor?"

"We thought you were dead, lad," Oin said. "We were to prepare you for funeral rites, but I saw you take a breath. My meager skills were not enough to save you, however, so Thorin sent Bofur and Dwalin to look for Tauriel and bid her come here."

"She had not been seen since Ravenhill, so we went to Dale first," Bofur said. "Bard said that she had passed through but had not stayed. He came with us to Lake-town, and we found her there in Bard's home, which managed to escape the dragon's wrath. When we told her you were alive, she came."

"She already risked herself once to save my life," Kili said. "I imagine King Thranduil will be angry with her for this."

"Ah…" Bofur said, wincing a little and sharing a look with Oin.

"What?" Kili asked. "What is it?"

"When we were in Dale, Bard told us that Thranduil banished her for going to Lake-town. I do not think he cares what she does anymore."

Kili looked down at her again, horrified. For saving his life, she had been banished from her home? He gathered her closer, held her against his chest. He knew what it was to be kept from your rightful home. Hadn't his only just been reclaimed? And now Tauriel had lost hers. For him. He wanted to march to Mirkwood and make Thranduil realize what a mistake he had made. He might have done it, but he could not let her go. "I will make this up to you," he vowed in a whisper. "I will find a way."

"There is nothing more than I can do for Thorin now," Oin said, having removed Thorin's boot and used kingsfoil to treat his wounded foot as best he could. "Bofur, help me get him up."

While Kili knelt with Tauriel in his arms, Bofur and Oin picked Thorin up and placed him on the cot that had been Kili's. Kili looked up from where he knelt. "Is he going to live?"

The worry was clear on Oin's face. "I do not know. If he had let us see to his wounds sooner…Tauriel tried to help him, but she was already so exhausted she could not finish. I do not know if it was enough."

Kili nodded slowly. "You both should leave, rest. I will watch over them."

"Are you sure?" Bofur asked. "You've only just awoken."

He looked back down at Tauriel. "Yes. I am sure."

* * *

><p>Tauriel swam up through a sea of exhaustion. She felt a sense of time passing while she tried to reach the surface. There was something important she was supposed to be doing. Something she had been trying to do when she had…lost herself. There was warmth and flickering light where she'd been, soft voices and urgent pleas.<p>

_Ravenhill. Bolg. Kili._ Words and images flashed through her mind like lightning, and she sat up with a gasp. She blinked, for a few seconds believing that she had been caught in the grip of a nightmare. She expected to see Mirkwood when she looked around, but instead found something very different.

She was not in Mirkwood. She would never be in Mirkwood again. She closed her eyes. Her home was gone. Her purpose was gone. And Kili. Kili was gone as well.

_Wait. No._

She wasn't in Mirkwood. She was in Erebor. And Kili was alive. She looked around frantically. On the cot to her right lay Fili, quiet and still, but breathing. She spun around, only to find that on the other cot lay Thorin, not Kili. For a moment she panicked, fearing something had gone wrong while she lay floating beneath the surface.

A door opened at the far end of the room. She turned at the sound, and when she saw Kili slip back into the room, her heart tripped, and what seemed to be an endless supply of tears threatened yet again. He was alive. He was safe. "Kili," she breathed.

Kili looked up, nearly dropped the tray of food Oin had given him. He quickly set it on a table. "Tauriel."

A lone tear spilled down Tauriel's cheek. "You're alive." A smile bloomed on her face, the first in what felt like an age. "I cannot believe you are still alive." She took one, two, three steps toward him, needing to close the distance, needing to be able to touch him so she could be sure he was real.

Her knees buckled, lingering weakness rising up to swamp her. Kili rushed forward and caught her before she could fall. "Easy, easy now," he said. "You need to sit. You need to rest."

He guided her to a nearby cot, then stood in front of her. "I—"

"I—"

They both tried to speak at once. Tauriel looked away, searching for the words to express what she was feeling. Things she had never felt before. She lifted a hand and cupped it against his cheek, but the contact was not enough. Not for either of them.

Kili took a step forward and wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped hers around him in kind, and the embrace spoke of longing and fear, relief and a dawning love that neither had expected. Tauriel buried her face in the curve of his neck, and he pressed his to the long silk of her hair and breathed deep.

If both of them wept a little, neither one noticed or cared.

The moment stretched long and sweet, joy and sorrow, angst and deep relief flowing through them. To come so close to death, to come so close to losing each other and the potential of what they felt together...they held on tighter, the world outside the two of them fading away.

It was Kili who eventually pulled back, but only far enough to reach into his pocket. He held his rune stone out to her, a soft tilt to his lips. "I did not ask for this back."

Tauriel closed her hand over his, over the stone. "I did not feel like it was mine to keep. Not when I thought..."

He placed it firmly in her hand and closed her fingers around it. "I want you to have it. I want you to keep it. We'll make a new promise."

"What sort of promise?"

"It can be anything we want it to be." He smiled. "There is nothing stopping us now."

Tauriel's own answering smile faltered suddenly. She could make any promise she chose, because there was no duty holding her back. She no longer had a home, a king, a purpose. She'd begun to grieve her loss of Mirkwood, but she hadn't truly mourned for all that entailed, because her fear for Kili had overridden everything else.

But now that Kili was alive and safe, it started to truly seep in, the magnitude of what Thranduil had done, of what she had lost.

"What is it?" Kili asked. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and overbright. "Mirkwood has been my home for more than six hundred years," she whispered. "He took it. Thranduil took my home from me."

"I am sorry," Kili said, hating that this fierce, noble woman looked so lost. "You will find your place again. I will help you."

He leaned his forehead against hers. He wanted badly for her place to be here at Erebor. He wanted her to stay here with him. But he knew that was not such an easy thing. The dwarves that would support him in this were very few in number. He thought that he could win over Fili when his brother woke up, and certainly Bofur and Oin knew Tauriel was different. But the others of the company he was not so sure of, and soon Erebor would be filled with many dwarves who distrusted or even outright hated elves. Winning them all over might be impossible.

But there was something, a small thing, he could give her now in thanks for what she'd done, to begin to make amends for all she had lost. "Come with me," he said suddenly, standing up and holding out his hand. "I want to show you something."

Tauriel stood up, unsure of what he intended but knowing she needed to pull herself together. She had shed more tears in the past few days than she had shed in the past hundred years. She was tired of them. She needed to find her strength again.

She retrieved her bow from where she'd dropped it near the door. "You do not need weapons," Kili said. "You are safe here."

"All the same," she murmured. When it came to her safety she did not share Kili's optimism. She had lived alongside Thranduil for too long to believe elves and dwarves could so easily mend old wounds. Perhaps she had made a start, using her healing skills here, but she was still holding onto her weapons.

When they opened the door, the hallway was filled with dwarves, and an open hostility permeated the air. Tauriel had been wrong. It seemed she hadn't made a start, because the dwarves were still rife with distrust. She plunged ahead, her head held high. She wondered what it would take for them to see that she was not like Thranduil and the rest of the elves. Hadn't she risked enough for them? Hadn't she given enough already?

Their hostility toward her scared her. Not for her own safety, but for any future she hoped to have with Kili. How could anything last between them when his people despised her?

Kili led her through halls and vast chambers, but they went up instead of down, as she expected. She had wondered if he meant to show her the treasure hold. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"You will see. We are almost there."

They walked through a hallway and stopped at a heavy stone door. I hope that my kin can forge a new legacy here," Kili said, looking up at her. "And thanks to you I can help them. And I know this place is not what you are used to, but it's not all bad."

He pushed open the door and they stepped out onto a small plateau on the side of the mountain. Tauriel saw stone steps to her left leading down the sheer face of it, and up above her the night sky dazzled with stars. She breathed deeply of the crisp night air and closed her eyes. She felt the starlight on her face, and sensed Kili step up beside her.

She looked down at him. "I have wanted to watch the starlight with you since the day we met," he said. He gestured up toward the sky. "This seemed like the best gift I could give you in thanks for all you've done for me, for Fili, for Thorin. I owe you so much, for everything you've given up for me."

"Seeing you alive and safe is gift enough," she told him. "I have known fear, and worry, and sorrow before. But what I felt when I saw you fall to Bolg's blade up on Ravenhill, it was different. I thought I would never stop mourning you."

She walked over to the edge of the ledge and looked out at the stars sparkling over the valley below, and the fires that were lit around Dale in the near distance. She lifted her face to the sky and breathed deeply of the crisp night air, closed her eyes for a moment and let herself be bathed in the light.

Kili stood speechless as he watched her. The starlight didn't seem so remote when he saw her bathed in it. She was beautiful and regal and strong. She was brave and honorable. He could not imagine letting her walk away from him, and he would never understand how Thranduil had tossed her aside.

When she sat on the edge of the ledge and let her legs dangle, he joined her. He sat beside her, and together they watched the stars twinkle and glow. Tauriel felt him next to her, and the closeness began to settle her raging emotions. Her eyes on the stars, she reached for his hand, wrapped her fingers around his. For a time they were quiet, sitting hand in hand beside each other, watching the stars. It was as close to peace as Tauriel could have hoped to feel again.

There was only one thing missing.

"Will you say the words to me again?" she asked quietly. "If you mean them, will you say the words you said to me on the shores of Esgaroth? I need to know that all of this has meant something."

When she felt him turn, she looked over at him. The look in his eyes told her all she needed to know, but still he lifted a hand to her cheek. "_Amra__lime_, Tauriel."

Her lips trembled into a smile. "_Melethenin_," she murmured back to him, and leaned forward so her lips could meet his under the starlight. It was a moment that neither had truly believed would ever come, not with all the obstacles between them. Here they were, in Kili's home, bathed in Tauriel's light. She felt his lips on hers, the roughness of his beard and the gentleness of his fingers as they brushed her cheek.

None of their problems mattered in that moment. Not hostile dwarves, not lingering injuries, not the fact that she had no home and did not know where she was going to go. Whatever was to come, all that mattered just then was that she was sitting in the starlight with the dwarf she had improbably fallen in love with.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Tauriel sensed them before Kili did, and knew their interlude was coming to an end. She breathed in the air, soaked in the starlight, and memorized the feel of Kili's hand in hers.

She stood up and turned around slowly. A number of dwarves were crowded around the doorway, Dain Ironfoot at their lead. A few of them she recognized, while the rest must have come down from the Iron Hills to support Erebor in battle. Tauriel felt her dagger sitting comfortably at her hip, but she did not reach for it. Not yet.

"What is the meaning of this?" Dain demanded, hands on hips and chest puffed out. Tauriel took an instant dislike to his brash manner. He glared at Kili. "You would sit there, hand in hand with an elf? Is that whose side you are on?"

"There are no sides here," Tauriel said before Kili could answer. "The battle is over. There is nothing more to be won."

"You are not wanted here," Dain said. "Go back to your king and your forest. This is our mountain."

Tauriel only looked at him. Here was a dwarf who appeared to have no interest in letting go of old prejudices.

"Now wait a minute," Kili said, pushing forward and standing in front of her. "You are kin to us, Dain, but you do not rule here. You do not say who comes and goes."

"Do you think anyone else wants her here?" Dain asked.

Kili looked over the other dwarves gathered near the doorway. He glared right back at Dain. "I would be dead without Tauriel," he said. "I would have died. Twice. Fili would be dead. Thorin would be dead. She deserves our respect, not our scorn."

"Kili, you do not have to do this," Tauriel murmured quietly. "It is all right. I did not expect a warm welcome here."

"No, this is not all right," he answered. To Dain he continued, "Tauriel has done more for us, lost more, than anyone had a right to ask. I will not have you disrespect her this way."

Dain took a step forward. "I speak for the many, and I do not answer to you, boy."

"Nor do I answer to you," Kili shot back, hot, reckless temper burning through him. "You are Lord of the Iron Hills, not King under the Mountain." Kili scanned the crowd of dwarves again. "Bofur," he said when he spotted the familiar hat. "You were at Lake-town. You saw what happened there. Is Tauriel our enemy? After Thorin sent you to find her, should we now send her away in the night, as though we are ashamed?"

He didn't wait for an answer. Kili met Dain's eyes again. "I am not ashamed! And if you demand that Tauriel leave here, then you are demanding that I leave as well."

Tauriel stared at him, her heart thudding. "Kili," she breathed, stepping back away from the confrontation so he would follow her. "You cannot walk away from your home. Your brother is sick. Thorin is sick. You can't leave here for me."

"I will not let Dain make a villain of you. I do not care if he is kin. I want you to be welcome here."

"Perhaps someday I will be." She smiled gently, loving this man and his wild, reckless heart. She was keenly aware of the rune stone in the pouch at her waist, and of the many eyes that were on them. "The rift between elves and dwarves is wide and deep," she said. "It cannot be healed in a day, or by a single act of kindness or bravery on either side."

She took a couple steps toward the steps leading down the mountain. "I'll go now. You should be with your brother when he wakes up."

She took two steps down, but stopped when Kili took her hand. "No, not this way," he said. "If you insist on going, I will not have you sneak down the mountain like a thief in the night. Honored guests use the gates."

She balanced on the narrow steps, their faces level, their eyes locked on each other. "I'm not going to give you your stone back," she said quietly. "The promise is still there, and I mean for us to keep it."

She saw that he understood her meaning, that she was not parting from him for good. "Dain does not rule here," Kili insisted. "I want you to stay."

"I do not want to be the cause of dissension amongst your people. Take some time to be with them, to rest, to get to know this place. You deserve that."

"Where will you go?"

She considered her previous plans. A forest somewhere, far from Mirkwood and her memories of Kili. "I'll go to Dale for now," she said. "Not so very far. Bard said that I would have a place there if I wanted it. Helping them rebuild and prepare for winter will give me a purpose."

"You could help rebuild Erebor."

"_Meleth vuin_," she whispered, touching her lips to his in a gesture she hoped showed him how hard it was for her to turn and walk away from him, to leave him with people who hated her. She wanted to protect him from them, from their judgment. She knew that when she left, they would try to convince him he was foolish for wanting her, foolish for thinking he could forge a relationship with an elf. But she had to trust that the strength of what they felt for each other would stand up to whatever was thrown in their way.

Before she could change her mind, she turned and began descending the steps. They were carved out of the mountain itself, narrow and winding and steep. When she reached the bottom and mounted the horse that was grazing on the remains of the autumn grasses, she looked up to see Kili standing on the edge of the overlook, silhouetted against starlight and stone. She held a fist against her heart, knowing that he couldn't see the gesture from his distance but hoping he felt it nonetheless.

And then she turned, resolute, and galloped across the valley.

* * *

><p>Kili stalked through the halls of Erebor, his anger at the unfairness of the situation growing with every step. Tauriel had saved him from the brink of death, only for his kin to force her away. He did not care about old prejudices at the moment. He only cared about what he knew; that Tauriel was not like the others of her kind. That she had risked so much for him, and that he loved her.<p>

"Kili, lad, you must think about what you are doing before you make a mistake you cannot come back from."

Kili stopped outside the doors of the sick room and turned. Balin stood there, with his great white beard and intelligent gaze. He had been with Thorin when Erebor was lost many years ago, Kili knew, and he had great respect for the old dwarf. But he was in no mood to be counseled. "What I feel for Tauriel is not a mistake," he said. "Do you think that what I feel has made me forget all the ways our people have been wronged by Thranduil, and all the other elves who have refused to help us when we've needed it? I haven't. I hate him for everything he has done to us, and now for what he has done to her because she is different."

He shook his head, threw up his arms in frustration. "She is not like them," he insisted. "Do you think that just because she is an elf I am wrong to love her?"

"I think that love can blind a man," Balin said. "Even if it is true that Thranduil has banished her from Mirkwood, where do you suppose she will go? What do you suppose she will do? Do you think she will stay here, lingering around the edges of her former home so that she can spend time with you? She is a wood elf, Kili. She needs forests and trees and rivers."

Kili didn't want to think overmuch about where Tauriel would eventually go. He wanted to remain convinced that somehow, they would find a way to be together, with peace between their people. He wanted her to be able to walk through the halls of Erebor without facing judgment and hate. And he wanted also to see the world through her eyes, to learn to spin daggers the way she did so effortlessly, to learn to speak her Elvish language. He wanted to run through forests with her, wherever those forests may be. And he wanted to sit in the starlight with her again, and for all the long days of their future.

"Yes, she needs forests, and she needs light. I would see them with her."

"Are you so eager to leave the home that is your birthright?" Balin asked.

"I want to see Erebor returned to what it once was, and I want our people to prosper. But I am a second son, and when Thorin dies Erebor will be Fili's, not mine. I don't want us to become trapped inside this mountain so that we forget there is a whole world out there. If we stay here and never leave, will dragon sickness take us all eventually? Will we have nothing to hold onto but our gold and our hatred? How would that be any better than what things were like before we came here?"

Balin sighed, for he knew all too well the dangers of dragon sickness. He had watched Thror descend into a madness that had led to his death, and the same had nearly happened to Thorin, before he came back to himself. He did not want the same to happen to Fili, to Kili, or to any of them.

"I know you think I am young and reckless," Kili said, "and that I care nothing for consequences or the future. And once that was true. But I am not the same as I was when we set out to return here. I am alive when I should be dead. I know what I am willing to risk, and I know how we can begin to mend the rifts that have torn us all apart."

Balin shook his head when Kili detailed what he wanted to do. "An ambitious idea, but Thorin would never allow it."

"Do you think Thorin is the same as he was before? We have reclaimed Erebor. He fought the dragon sickness and won."

"And Thorin has more reason than anyone else to hate the elves. He allowed Tauriel to come here because there is nothing he would not do for you or for Fili, but this he would not agree to."

"Thorin has not awakened, and someone must make decisions in his stead. I know that Dain is a great warrior, and he is kin to us, but I do not wish to follow anyone who hates so blindly."

"This is a dangerous path you are on, Kili," Balin warned. "If you continue down it, there are many who will call you a fool."

"I have been called worse, I am sure," Kili said, pausing in the now-open doorway. "This is what's right, Balin. You know it's right."

He went inside without waiting for an answer, his thoughts consumed with questions of how he would get past Dain and the rest of those who would be opposed to his ideas. But if doing it would bring about the beginning of peace after centuries of hate, he would see it done.

He looked up, and his thoughts scattered like fallen leaves in wind.

"Fili."

* * *

><p>Tauriel wandered the streets of Dale, looking for a suitable shelter that was not already occupied by some of the former residents of Esgaroth. She wanted somewhere high, where she could see out over the land, and where she could have a little privacy when she desired it. Once towers had jutted toward the sky from many points of the city. Now, after Smaug, after the Orcs, many of them were in ruins. And most of those that still stood were in use for their intended purposes, with guards watching for any new hostile forces approaching.<p>

She didn't think new enemies would come so quickly, but they would come. She cared not for whatever gold or jewels were stored in the depths of Erebor, but there were many who did, many who would go to great lengths to obtain the wealth of the mountain. She planned to find Bard, tell him she would help secure and rebuild the town in exchange for shelter. Doing such would serve two goals: it would give her a new purpose, a new focus, and it would keep her close to Kili.

She wondered where they were going to get the coin to rebuild their town. She certainly didn't expect any further help to come from Mirkwood. Many elves had fought and died in the battle. She mourned them quietly at the same time she acknowledged that their loss could easily spur Thranduil toward further anger, further isolation.

Thranduil was a warrior of great renown amongst the elves of Mirkwood, but he was also a king, one who would stop at nothing to ensure the survival of his kingdom. Over time, his chosen strategy of protecting their own borders and nothing else had begun to chafe at her. How could they simply ignore anyone else who might need their help? And why would they want to?

When the dwarves had escaped Mirkwood on the Forest River, and Thranduil had sent her away for threatening the Orc, she had no longer been able to ignore her conscience. If Thranduil would not help them, then she would use her own skills and do what she could. For Kili, for all of them. And though she had expected anger from Thranduil, expected consequences, when news of her banishment had reached her amongst the refugees on the shores of Esgaroth, she had nearly shattered. Perhaps would have, if Legolas hadn't given her the distraction of a journey to Gundabad.

She missed Legolas, she admitted to herself. He had always tried to protect her, even when she thought she didn't want his protection. They had spent six hundred years fighting side by side. Such a bond was not easily set aside. She had learned so much of her fighting skills from him. She was who she was today in part because of Legolas's companionship.

She wished she had had a chance to say goodbye to him when she was not already consumed with sorrow and grief. It had not occurred to her then, with Kili's lifeless body in her arms, how much she was going to miss Legolas. And she had not thought of him at all while she was at Erebor. It was only now, alone in the streets of Dale while Kili saw to his kin, that she began to mourn the loss of her lifelong friend.

She finally found what she was looking for, in the high reaches of the town. A narrow, unoccupied tower. It was partially crumbled, its roof gone, leaving the upper floor open to the cold night air. She barely noticed the chill of it on her skin. She stood amongst the crumbled stones and looked toward Erebor. There were braziers lit beside the ruined gates, and there would be guards there, she knew. Probably Dain, she thought, unless the surly dwarf was still inside, ruling Erebor in Thorin's absence.

She turned away, kicked some crumbled stones aside and sat against what remained of the ruined walls. Were she and Kili fools? She loved him, and that was a feeling she had never felt before. She did not want to lose it, but how could they be together when his people hated her? Apparently still hated her, in spite of what she'd tried to do to help them. She didn't know what else she could do; she had fought to the ends of exhaustion trying to heal Kili and his kin.

She could ask him to go with her. Anywhere in Middle Earth she chose, and he would go. But was it fair, to take him from his home because she was lonely?

She slept little that night, and what sleep she did manage was troubled.

* * *

><p>"Fili!"<p>

Kili rushed across the room and embraced his brother, who stood beside Thorin's cot. "You're awake!" he said with a laugh.

Fili embraced him in return, the two brothers celebrating the fact that they were still alive when they should have been dead.

"I am glad to see you, brother," Fili said, stepping back so he could look Kili over to be sure he was all right. "When I awoke and you were not here, I feared the worst."

"I awoke hours ago," Kili said. "I watched over the three of you for most of the day."

Fili frowned. "Three? Who was the third?"

"Tauriel," Kili said.

"Tauriel was here, in Erebor? And she almost died? How?"

Kili relayed the story Bofur had told him, of his own near-death and Thorin's order to find Tauriel. "She came here when she didn't have to, and she almost died trying to save us all. I woke up in time to see her collapse on the ground next to Thorin. She didn't rouse until after nightfall."

"I would thank her if I could," Fili said, "but I suppose she's gone back to Mirkwood by now."

"She is not going back to Mirkwood." Kili turned back toward the doors and scowled. "Thranduil banished her from her home for coming to Lake-town. And then when she woke Dain ordered her away as if we should all have been ashamed that she was here."

Fili watched his brother closely. "What part of the story are you leaving out?" he asked.

Kili paced away, picked up a bowl with the remains of crushed kingsfoil in it and threw it against the wall, then sat down heavily on the cot that Fili had vacated. "I love her, Fili. I love her, and I do not care who knows it. She is not like Thranduil, anyone can see that, and yet they still treat her with contempt and scorn."

"You cannot expect everyone else to see her as you do," Fili said, concerned that Kili's feelings for Tauriel seemed to run so deep. It would not be an easy road if he insisted on continuing down it, and he did not want Kili's temper to lead him to do something rash.

"I expect them to treat her with respect when she risks herself for us," Kili said, the temper Fili was so worried about coming back to boil the longer he thought about it. "And I'll tell you something else. I will not follow orders from Dain. I do not care if he is a great warrior. I do not care if Erebor would have been lost had Dain's army not come. I will not answer to him, and if he thinks differently, I will walk out of here without looking back. I told him as much already, and I still mean it."

"All right, just relax now," Fili said, holding out his hands. "Dain isn't here, and if anyone is to make decisions in Thorin's stead, it should be Balin."

"Balin already tried to convince me that my feelings are folly," Kili said. "I do not want to hear it again. And besides, by rights you are Thorin's heir. It is you who has the claim to rule in Thorin's absence."

"And you think my opinion carries more weight than Balin or Dain? Do you think that if I tell everyone to accept Tauriel that they will?"

"You were there at Lake-town. You saw her. You said yourself that you heard Legolas order her to leave, but that she stayed and healed me instead. I could have loved her for that alone, but there's so much more to her. Fili…" His anger seemed to drain away, and in that moment he looked both impossibly young and far too old. "Tell me how to love her without losing my kin," he pleaded.

Fili wished, more than anything, he could give his brother the answers he was seeking. "I don't know if you can," he said instead. "And I'm not sure you should try."

"How can you say that?" Kili demanded. "How can you expect me to walk away when I love her this way?"

"I don't doubt that you love her," Fili said, though he did not personally understand how such a thing could happen so quickly. "But you are right. There are those who will judge you no matter what you do to convince them otherwise. I don't want you to face that. I don't want to watch our people turn away from you because of this one choice."

"If they judge me for my decisions, then so be it," Kili said as he surged to his feet. "I know how I feel, and I've made my choice."

Fili watched pensively as Kili stormed from the room. Hadn't he seen the signs that Kili had feelings for Tauriel? The problem was, he hadn't suspected just how deep those feelings ran, or how far Kili would go to hold onto them. And he was afraid that Kili just refused to admit how much it was going to hurt if the other dwarves rejected him because of Tauriel.

"You need to wake up now," Fili said to Thorin. "Before Kili gets himself into any more trouble."


	6. Chapter 6

Tauriel awoke in the morning to sounds of rebuilding. She stretched muscles sore from lingering injuries and sleeping on rough stones and descended the steps of the tower. She would find Bard, she thought, and assure herself that she was still welcome here.

She hadn't been walking through the streets for long when she heard someone calling her name.

"Tauriel!"

She looked up in time to see Tilda, Bard's youngest daughter, running down the narrow lane. "You came back!" Before she could answer, Tilda threw her arms around Tauriel's waist and hugged her. Tauriel froze momentarily, unsure what to do, then awkwardly patted Tilda on the back. She remembered the girls from Esgaroth, of course, and was glad to see that they were safe and well. She was, however, a little baffled by the open affection the young girl showed her.

Sigrid caught up to them. "Someone told Da that they saw you come back last night," she said. "He bid us to come find you."

Tilda stepped back. "There are elves at the gates," she said, her eyes wide with excitement. "I have always liked elves."

"Ah…I do not believe they are here for me," she said. She was not going try to explain to these young girls the significance of Thranduil's banishment. She did not want to explain it to anyone; it was an open wound that she thought would take a very long time to heal.

"You have to come," Tilda insisted, taking her hand and tugging at it. "I think they have a gift for you."

Tauriel sincerely doubted that, but she let Tilda pull her down the lane and through the town. The closer they got to the gates, the more her worry grew. Had Thranduil somehow learned of her presence here and decided that he did not want her even this close to Mirkwood? She would not stay if Thranduil tried to cause trouble for Bard, but where else could she go that would not take her away from Kili?

"Da!" Tilda called when they neared the gates. She let go of Tauriel's hand and ran up to her father. "We found Tauriel!"

"I can see that," Bard said, smiling indulgently at his young daughter. He looked at Tauriel then, nodding in greeting as his face settled back into a neutral expression. He tipped his head, but Tauriel's gaze had already been drawn to the two elves who stood nearby.

"Feren. Elros," she said, her face ruthlessly blank. Her dagger was at her side, but she had not brought her bow with her, and she did not know what to do with her hands. It was not right, she thought, that she should feel nervous around her own kind. She had known both of these men for hundreds of years, but she was afraid of what they might want.

"Tauriel," Elros said. "We came here at Thranduil's behest to offer aid to the men of Esgaroth, but when we heard that you might be here, we brought something for you as well."

She followed cautiously as Elros walked back to the horse-drawn cart that stood nearby. A number of men and women were busy offloading food, drink and other supplies. As the cart began to empty, a cloth-draped package was revealed. Elros pulled the cloth away, and Tauriel saw a magnificently-carved chest that was very familiar to her. She looked back up at the two elves. "Does Thranduil know you've done this?" she asked.

"He does not," Feren said.

"We cannot undo what was done," Elros said. "But nor do we want you left defenseless on your own."

Bard directed a couple of his men to lift the chest from the back of the cart and carry it under a partially-crumbled portico nearby. After a long moment, Tauriel simply nodded at the two elves and started to walk away.

"Is it true, what we've heard?" Feren asked. When she stopped, turned back, he continued, "that you defied King Thranduil and went to Esgaroth not to pursue fleeing Orcs but to save the life of a dwarf? One of the very dwarves who escaped the dungeons?"

"Yes, it is true," she said. "I healed him, and I do not regret it, whatever the consequences. How can you regret saving the life of someone you love?"

"How can you love a dwarf?" Elros wondered.

Tauriel thought of Kili, his impish charm and his fierce heart. She thought of the way he had stood up against the doubt and derision of the dwarves on the overlook at Erebor. "I love him just as I could have loved an elf, or a man. It does not matter to me where he comes from, or who he is kin to. Only what he makes me feel."

Feren and Elros shared a look. They had both known Tauriel for many long years, and with the exception of an obvious close bond with Legolas, she had always seemed a somewhat solitary elf, remote in a way not entirely unlike Thranduil. She was a skilled warrior and had been an able captain of their guard, but there were few who knew her well.

Both elves were sorry to see her gone from Mirkwood, but neither was willing to risk Thranduil's wrath by asking for her return. The chest had been a compromise, one they hoped Tauriel appreciated and Thranduil never learned of.

"We wish you well, wherever you choose to go," Elros said.

Tauriel inclined her head. "_Hannon le_." She waited until they were gone, riding away with the empty cart, then turned to Bard. "I meant to find you this morning, to be sure you don't disapprove of my presence here."

"Why would I disapprove? I meant it when I said you were welcome here."

"You do not want Thranduil as an enemy," she said. "He could turn on you if he finds you sheltering me."

"For Thranduil's aid to my people I am grateful," he said, "but he rules Mirkwood, not Dale. The Master of Lake-town is gone, and we will make our own choices now."

Tauriel nodded, for it was a sentiment she understood and respected. Was she not in much the same situation herself? "I will provide whatever help I can, in exchange for shelter," she said. "I can stand guard, and help train your men to fight, if such is needed. I am no great craftsman, but I can clear rubble as well as anyone else."

"You owe us nothing, but any help you would be willing to give will be most appreciated."

When Bard left with his daughters, Tauriel stepped into the portico where the chest had been left. It had been given to her as a gift when Thranduil had named her captain of his guard. She ran her fingers over some of the carvings on the lid.

She knelt down and opened the lid. On top were a fresh pair of daggers, beautifully carved and wickedly sharp. There was also a sword and sheath, the long blade engraved with elegant curving script. A number of clothing items filled the rest of the space, including the long hooded cloak she often wore during the winter, and a set of leaf-maille armor. At the bottom she found a supply of lembas bread. She smiled to herself, comforted to know that not all of her people despised her for what she'd done.

* * *

><p>Fili walked into the Hall of Kings and found that a discussion—not quite an argument—was already taking place. Concerning his brother, no doubt, at least in part. He had not seen Kili since their conversation the previous night. And since Thorin had not yet awoken, Fili felt that it was his responsibility to stand up for his brother.<p>

He had had all night to think about Kili and Tauriel, and all of the complications a relationship between the two could bring. But somewhere in those long hours some of Kili's words had started to work their way deep into his mind.

"We need to decide what to do about the men of Lake-town, and about the elves," Balin said.

"What more is to be done?" Dain wondered.

"Thorin promised Bard a share of the treasure in exchange for the aid he gave us at Lake-town. We owe him that much at least, after the town was destroyed by Smaug. The survivors will need resources to live out the winter in the ruins of Dale."

"Do we not need resources to rebuild Erebor?" another of the Iron Hills dwarves wondered.

"The treasure hold is vast," Balin said. "There is enough to rebuild Erebor a hundred times over at least. We all gave our word to Bard. We need to honor it."

Dori, Nori and Bofur, standing near Balin, all nodded. "We would not have reached Erebor in time had it not been for Bard getting us into Lake-town," Dwalin said. "We owe the man a debt."

Dain had not been taken by dragon sickness, but he was hard-headed and skeptical. He shook his head at Balin. "And the elves? What is it you would give to Thranduil, that scheming, smirking son of an Orc?"

"If you think Thranduil will not regroup and come back here eventually, you are wrong," Balin said. "If we want peace with the elves, something needs to be done."

"How much gold do you propose to give him?" Dain asked.

"It is not gold he wants," Balin said. "It is gems. A small chest filled with white gems. They are what he came here for many years ago, before Smaug. If we give them to him now, we may indeed have peace with the elves for many years to come. Would that not be better than more threats of battle? We need peace if we are to rebuild and flourish here."

"I do not like elves," Dain said, quite unnecessarily. "Never have, never will. And here we are, talking about giving them treasure. And not only that, but we have a dwarf amongst us who claims to love an elf."

"I believe him," Fili said, stepping up beside Balin to speak for the first time. "I believe Kili when he says that he loves her."

"And do you support him in that?"

Fili was quiet a moment, his face pensive. "I told him last night that it might be best not to pursue Tauriel." A number of the dwarves nearby nodded in agreement, but Fili held up a hand to quiet the murmurs that started. "I was wrong to tell him that. The idea of a dwarf and an elf together may make many of us uncomfortable, and I do not want Kili to face scorn from his own people because of this choice, but I do not presume to tell him who he is allowed to love. And may I add that of any elf we've ever encountered, we owe Tauriel a debt. She saved Kili's life. She saved mine, and I will thank her for that if I have the chance. And though he has not awoken yet, she saved Thorin's as well."

Fili's words gave some of the others courage. "Have you ever seen an elf shed tears for a dwarf?" Bofur asked, stepping up beside Fili. "I never would have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. But that's just what she did."

Oin came forward as well. "Elvish medicine is a wondrous thing," he said. "Far beyond what skills I possess. If Tauriel had not agreed to come here, we would be mourning the deaths of three more of our own. I have been with Thorin all morning. He sleeps still, but I believe more peacefully than last night. She collapsed while trying to heal the wounds that Thorin hid from us, and nothing we tried could rouse her. However uncomfortable it may make us, we do owe her a debt. That debt can be paid by slowing our rush to judgment of both Tauriel and Kili."

"I don't like it," Dain said.

"We don't have to like it," Balin said. "But Kili is grown, and if we do not want to lose him, we may have to try to accept it."

* * *

><p>In a small but secluded field outside the main gates of Dale, Tauriel practiced with her daggers. She whirled and slashed, her movements violently quick but undeniably graceful. Anyone watching would have been mesmerized by her speed and more than a little intimidated by her skill. But at the moment she was alone, and she preferred it that way.<p>

In her mind she was back on Ravenhill, fighting her way through a dozen Orcs on her way to Kili. She thought of Bolg, the enormously strong Orc who had nearly killed Kili not once, but twice. She knew that Bolg was the one who had shot Kili at Mirkwood, though at the time she hadn't known that the arrow was tipped with Morgul poison.

The thought of being too late to save him from injury not once but twice infuriated her, and she redoubled her intensity. She ran toward the nearby wall, leapt and vaulted off it. She came down on her shoulders in a forward roll before springing back to her feet. She spun and twirled her daggers as she moved across the grass in a deadly dance.

That was how Kili found her, flame-red hair streaming behind her as she moved. Her concentration was so absolute that she didn't notice him for several long minutes. He stood still, watching breathlessly as she fought an invisible foe. He had seen her fight before, but never when he wasn't fighting or fleeing himself. Now, he could simply stand back and admire her skill, the graceful and deadly way she moved.

She spun one last time, and ended with one arm arched over her head, the other straight out from her side, the tips of both daggers aimed directly toward Kili. She saw him instantly, and her heart began pounding from more than simple exertion.

"I was not expecting you," she said, dropping her arms to her sides.

"I have wanted to watch you doing that since the day we met," Kili confessed, his eyes avid and warm.

Tauriel's eyes flicked away at the same time her lips tipped up in a little smile. "Watch me doing what?"

"Fighting the way you do."

"You've seen me fight before."

"Not like that, not when there are no enemies to be slain. I like watching the way you move, graceful and deadly."

Tauriel was embarrassed at the same time she was warmed by his words. People had admired her fighting skills before, but not the same way Kili did. And she was certain that nobody had ever looked at her the way Kili looked at her. He was so sure of his feelings, and had no fear of expressing them. She, on the other hand, had spent her entire life amongst a people who were known for keeping such things much more private.

"If you teach me how to handle a blade like that," Kili said, "I will teach you archery in return."

Tauriel smiled, for they both knew that she had been using a bow for far longer than he'd been alive. "Will you now?"

He smiled back. "Of course."

She flipped one of her daggers so she caught the flat of the blade and held the hilt toward him. He took it, and she stepped back to a safe distance. "All right," she said, holding her hand out to show him how she held the hilt of the dagger. "Now move it in your hand like this." She flipped the blade slowly a couple times, enjoying Kili's look of intense concentration.

He tried the move with the dagger he held, and scowled when the blade dropped to the ground. He tried, again and again, with the same result. Tauriel knew his shorter fingers would make handling the blade more difficult, but he was nothing if not determined.

"Show me again," he said after once more bending down to pick up the fallen dagger.

"Are you sure you don't want to try something else?"

"I'll get it, I'll get it," he muttered, scowling at the blade and missing Tauriel's ill-concealed smile. "Show me again."

She did, standing beside him so he could mirror the movements of her blade. Tauriel realized, with no little surprise, that the strange thing she was feeling was peace. After all of the turmoil, pain and fear, after being certain she would spend her life mourning a love that had never had a chance, she was standing beside Kili with no threat of war between them. He was alive, she was alive, and they had their chance.

So she showed him again, and again until he was able to twist the dagger in his hand—albeit slowly—without dropping it.

"I could kill an Orc with that move," he declared.

"Perhaps a slow one," she said, and had to bite her lip to contain a laugh at the indignant look he shot her. "You need to throw the blade after you spin it." She demonstrated, flipping the blade through her fingers and pivoting to throw it at a nearby tree. The blade embedded itself in the trunk and she grinned, gesturing for him to follow suit.

"I have thrown plenty of knives in my day," Kili assured her. "This will not be a problem."

And so commenced an hour of increasing frustration for Kili, as time after time he threw the dagger, only for it to bounce uselessly to the ground. Tauriel's affection for him grew with every errant throw and muttered curse. She tried to hide her amusement from him, but when his frustration boiled over and he simply heaved the dagger at the tree with a growled Khuzdul curse, her laughter bubbled free.

"Are you laughing?" Kili demanded.

"No," she said, pressing a hand to her lips and turning away. She went down to a knee to pick up the fallen dagger, and her shoulders shook. She loved this man, she was happy, and she felt a freedom and a peace she'd never felt before.

"Tauriel..." Kili said, his voice indignant again.

She gave up trying to hold her laughter back. She braced a hand against the trunk of the tree and let it ring out across the field. She let herself feel the joy of the moment, let her ever-growing love for Kili swamp her.

When she looked up at him he had a strange expression on his face, one of both wonder and heat. "What is it?" she asked.

"I have never heard you laugh before." Their eyes held for a suspended moment, then Kili was moving, striding toward her. Tauriel, still on her knee beside the tree, had to look up at him this time when he stopped just in front of her, not quite touching, but oh, so close. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers over her cheek.

Her breath caught at the simple gesture, and then left her in a rush when he took her face in both hands and leaned in to press his lips to hers. The kiss whispered of a passion neither had ever felt before, and something deeper. It whispered of love, and a future neither was willing to let go of, come what may.

Kili leaned his forehead against hers, and Tauriel kept her eyes closed. She wanted to savor this, the perfect peace she felt. Nothing in this life was ever easy, but she and Kili had traveled a brutal path together already. She wanted this peace, this love, for both of them.

She wrapped her arms around him and held on, and for that moment they both felt as though they were the only two souls in the world.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"Teach me to say something in Elvish."

As twilight began to descend on the quiet little field outside the gates of Dale, Kili sat with his back against the same tree that he had spent an hour earlier trying to impale with Tauriel's dagger. They had shared a small piece of lembas bread, which Kili found wholly unsatisfying, but Tauriel seemed not to mind.

Now Tauriel lay on the grass with her head in Kili's lap, her legs stretched out to his side. Her arms folded lightly across her waist, she looked up at him. "_Ungol_," she said.

"_Ungol_," he repeated. "And what does it mean?"

Tauriel's lips twitched. "Spider."

He looked down at her with an adorably indignant expression. "_That_ is the first thing you thought to teach me?"

She chuckled silently. "We met because of spiders, did we not?" When he huffed out a breath, she smiled. "_Maethor_," she said. "Warrior."

He nodded in approval. "Now that's better. _Maethor_."

"_Estel_," she murmured. "Hope."

"Yes, much better." As stars began to appear in the sky he repeated the words, and the half dozen others she taught him. He was a quick study, she thought, and wondered if he would teach her Khuzdul one day. The dwarves were secretive about their language, she knew, but she wanted to learn some of his words so she could share them with him. There were so many things she wanted to share with him.

Kili took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. He let them slide away, drew designs in her palm. Over and again he played with her hand while silence spun around them and stars twinkled above.

"Do you think," Kili wondered, "if we gave Thranduil the jewels and gold he wants that it would help? Would it make things better?"

"It is gems he wants. The white gems of Lasgalen."

"I told Balin I wanted to give him what he wants. He does not think Thorin would agree, but Thorin has not awoken, and something needs to be done. Do you think the gems would help bring peace?"

Tauriel was quiet for a long moment.

_What do you know of love? Nothing._

_What you feel for the dwarf is not real._

She would never forget her confrontation with Thranduil in the streets of Dale, the feel of her bow shattering in her hands with a single lightning-fast swipe of his sword. She remembered the fury in Thranduil's eyes and her own shock at having his sword aimed at her heart.

But she remembered just as well the look in his eyes when he'd found her with Kili on Ravenhill. There had been more than battle-weariness in his gaze. There had been devastation and pain that was very old. Even in her own shock and grief she had seen it.

_Why does it hurt so much?_

_Because it was real._

"I'm not sure I know Thranduil as well as I once thought I did," she said at length. "I've long thought him to be cold, unfeeling."

"Heartless," Kili added, and she nodded.

"It's what I once believed. But now…he sent supplies to Dale this morning, and I would not have expected that. There may be depths to him that he keeps hidden from the world. The gems may keep him from returning with his army. Beyond that I do not know."

Kili frowned, because he did not understand how she could give Thranduil any sort of defense. "How can you feel anything other than scorn for him, when he took your home from you?"

Tauriel felt plenty of bitterness and sorrow for the loss of her home, but how did she explain to Kili six hundred years of history? "It is a long story. One I do not like to speak of."

They were quiet for long moments, hand in hand as they watched the stars. Neither noticed the chill of the night air, or the wisps of voices that occasionally carried to them from the town behind them.

"Fili woke up last night," he said eventually.

She glanced up at him, but when he remained quiet, staring into the distance, she said, "Is he all right?"

"He will be fine."

She reached up with her free hand and brushed a finger across his cheek. "And yet you look sad."

He shook his head, and it troubled her that he appeared weary. "Of everyone, I thought my brother would stand by me. I thought I could convince him to see things the way I see them, and he would in turn help convince the others."

Oh, but she loved this man, she thought. She wished there was an easy way to take away his pain. She curled her fingers around his and held. "Your brother loves you," she said. "He does not want to see you hurt."

"Parting from you hurts." Her lips tipped up, because it still sent a little thrill of amazement through her to hear him say such things. "The night before the battle I thought of you," he said. "I wondered where you were, if I would ever see you again. And then when Fili fell, even in the midst of rage I wished for you again. I wished for you to save my brother."

"I thought of you as well," she said. "When I saw Bolg's army departing Gundabad, I was frightened for you. I was not sure I would make it in time to help you. I thought that I might never see you again, that I would be too late."

"You did. You made it in time to help all of us. I know that, even if the others refuse to see it."

She thought of the long rift between her people and his. And she thought of battle wounds both new and very, very old. "Time does not erase all hurts, but it eases much," she said. She had learned to move on from the wounds she'd suffered a lifetime ago, but hurt still found a way to pierce her from time to time. Now, lying in the arms of a man her people told her she should not love, she thought of how she'd come to be in Thranduil's company. She never spoke of it, not even to Legolas. But she found that for the first time wanted to share the story with another.

* * *

><p>Argument and discussion had continued at Erebor for most of the day. There were a few in favor of giving gold and gems to Dale and Mirkwood to ensure peace, but there were more who thought to give the elves nothing. Yet another faction insisted that nothing at all should be done without Thorin's approval. He was the rightful King under the Mountain, after all.<p>

Fili was getting tired of hearing it all. He was Thorin's heir, but he was not king yet and he was not ready to be. He wanted to enjoy their hard-won peace. He wanted to help repair Erebor and bring it back to the glory he knew it had once had before the decisions were all his to make. He wanted to sword fight and spar with his brother, if Kili ever saw fit to return.

He figured he knew where Kili had gone, and for the moment he was not going to worry. His brother was not in danger, and that was what mattered.

He sat in the sick room near Thorin's cot, idly playing with a dagger. As the day wore on, more of the company joined him. Oin and Balin were there. Ori had drifted in, and sat quietly on a cot sketching something on a sheet of parchment. Gloin was with Dain, seeing to the repair of the main gates, but Nori came in, flipping a couple of coins in his fingers, followed by Bombur.

Dwalin sat on Thorin's other side, quiet and brooding.

Bofur wandered in, playing a few errant notes on a flute. He stopped and looked around when he saw all of the other dwarves in the room. He made note of who was there and who was not. "Has Kili not returned? Is he with Tauriel then?"

There were quiet grumbles and slanted looks shared amongst the dwarves.

"Are we really going to let this happen?" Nori asked.

"It is not about letting something happen or not," Fili said. "This is Kili's choice, and I would not see him shamed because of it."

"But an elf?"

"An elf who saved his life. Saved my life. Saved Thorin's life." And while Fili placed a hand on Thorin's shoulder, he was looking at Nori, so he missed the way Thorin stirred at the touch.

"Do you think I expected to find myself defending an elf?" Fili asked. "If you had told me a week ago that we would be here like this, I would have called you a liar."

"We all have cause to despise elves," Bofur said. "But are we strong enough to admit it when we owe one our thanks?"

"Thanking one for saving the lives of our kin is one thing," Bombur said. "But a relationship between a dwarf and an elf? It does not seem natural."

"Kili belongs here with us," Nori said. "And yet where has he been all day? Why is he not here with Thorin?"

"He left here in anger after I tried to convince him not to pursue a relationship with Tauriel," Fili said. "I awoke from what should have been death to find my brother declaring his love for an elf. Do you think that was easy to hear? But consider this also. Should we be bound forever to old hatreds? Did we fight for this place only for it to become a prison?"

"Fili, what will your mother think when she arrives?" Balin asked.

"I think she will be grateful her sons are alive," Fili answered. "She will not let an age-old hatred keep her from her son."

"You are young and optimistic," Dwalin murmured. "You were not there when Thranduil turned and led his army away rather than help us. You do not realize how deep the insult goes for some."

"I know about hate," Fili assured him. "And I am not asking anyone to forgive the insult Thranduil gave to our people. I have not forgotten it. But I stand by my brother. I will always stand by him. You may call us young, you may call us foolish. But look me in the eye and tell me you would rather we were dead than to have to face thanking Tauriel for saving us."

The dwarves glanced at each other and then away, their eyes downcast as they considered those options. None of them wanted to see their kin dead, of course. There had already been too much death here, too much sorrow. They wanted peace, and they wanted their kin, including Kili, here where they could flourish. Not a one of them throughout their long journey here had ever considered that they would receive aid from an elf, especially an elf who owed allegiance to Thranduil. It was a bitter pill for many of them to swallow.

To some, it felt as though thanking Tauriel was akin to thanking Thranduil. But they also remembered the still, near-lifeless bodies of Fili and Kili, and they remembered hearing the news that Thorin had collapsed. Believing that their king was dying had brought on a grief that was almost impossible to comprehend.

"She has our thanks for saving our kin," Dwalin said. "But beyond that? A relationship between a dwarf and an elf? Are we to support that as well?"

They all looked around again. "What would they do?" Ori wondered. "Where would they live?"

"A wood elf could never live at Erebor," Nori said.

"Thorin would never allow it," Bombur agreed.

"If you think this dilemma is not tearing Kili up inside, you are wrong," Fili said. "He wanted to win the mountain as much as any of us."

"And yet he is with her, not here where he should be," Nori pointed out.

"He left in anger," Fili said, as he had before. "He will return."

"Are you sure of that?" Dwalin asked him. "Are you absolutely sure?"

Fili opened his mouth to say yes. Of course he was sure. Of course Kili would choose Erebor and his people in the end. His love for Tauriel might be real, but it would not last. How could it? But before he could say anything, a deep, raspy voice cut through the din of arguing.

"_Enough._"

* * *

><p>"I was young," Tauriel began. "I was very, very young."<p>

They sat still against the tree in the field outside Dale. Kili played with a long lock of Tauriel's hair as she lay with her head in his lap. She stared up at the stars, unable to look at him as she told her tale.

"My mother said I had the gift of healing, and she wanted me to study with Lord Elrond in Imladris. We were to go there together, my mother, my brothers and I."

"You have brothers?" Kili asked.

She shuddered out a long breath, and answered him in the telling. "We had just left the far western reaches of Mirkwood when we were set upon by a company of Orcs. There were more than twenty while we were only four, and only my brothers carried weapons. They fought valiantly, but it was not enough."

Kili held his breath, reached down and gently wiped away the tear that had fallen from the corner of her eye. "You do not have to speak of it," he murmured. "You do not have to say any more."

"My mother was slain first," she said, as though she had not heard him speak. "She tried to defend me, but…I tried to run, but an Orc pulled me from my feet and threw me against a tree. When I fell I could not move, and I thought my body was broken. I could only watch as my brothers were overtaken by the pack and slaughtered. When all else was lost I closed my eyes and feigned death, and the pack moved on. I was a coward."

"_No_," Kili said immediately, shaking his head in denial. "You could never be a coward."

"I should have done something. Taken up my brother's fallen sword."

"You said yourself there were too many of them," Kili said. "If you had done that, you would have died for certain." He took her hand, lifted it to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

"The next thing I remember is waking up inside Thranduil's halls. Some of his guards had come upon the slaughter and discovered I was still alive. They took me back and saw to it that I was healed." She squeezed her eyes shut, the memories coming to her, sharp like knives. "When I was healed I asked to be taken to Imladris. Thranduil agreed to send some of his guards with me, and I went to Lord Elrond to learn the art of healing. It was the only way I knew to honor my family's sacrifice. But from the moment I awoke all I wanted was to learn how to fight. From that first waking breath I wanted to be a warrior, and so I returned to Thranduil's halls and asked him to teach me."

"And he did?" Kili asked, his heart aching for her. He remembered all too well the sight of Azog plunging a blade into Fili's back. It had been the worst moment of his life, watching his brother fall. And she had lost not just one brother, but her entire family at once.

"Thranduil took me in," Tauriel continued. "I had only rarely been inside the halls before that, but from then on they became my home. Thranduil gave me shelter, and Legolas taught me to fight. I learned to use a bow, daggers, swords. I learned not to be afraid every time I stepped into the forest. And I learned to watch the starlight and treasure the memory of my family."

She squeezed his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles this time. "I know you think I should hate him," she said. "I want you to understand why that is not so easy. Thranduil may be cold, and sometimes cruel, but he gave me a home when I was lost, and for six hundred years I had a purpose. I was the captain of his guard. I was not weak, and I was not afraid."

Kili urged her to sit up, because he wanted to look at her. In the blue-white starlight, her eyes were damp, haunted by memories, by pain old and new. "You were never weak, and you were never a coward," he said.

Tauriel closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against his. "I miss them," she whispered.

He held her in the stillness of the night, let his nearness provide what comfort it could.

Bofur and Dwalin stood in the shadow of the gates of Dale, struck by the emotion of the tableau they had come upon. It had been easy enough to come to Dale and learn that Kili and Tauriel had been seen in the field just outside the gates.

Dwalin was not sure what he had expected to find here, but it was not this. While he had intended to march straight through the gates and inform Kili that his duty was at Erebor, Tauriel's words had stopped him. They had carried on the chill night breeze, and he had listened as she told Kili of her family's destruction.

He watched them hold each other in silence now. There was nobody in Middle Earth he felt more loyalty to than Thorin, and that included seeing to the welfare of Fili and Kili when Thorin could not do it himself. So while he had come here prepared to thank Tauriel for healing his kin, he had been prepared also to convince Kili that what he was doing was impossible. To let Tauriel go, for his own good and the good of the rest of the dwarves.

Now he watched Kili and saw not just a young, impetuous dwarf, but a man grown. And when he looked at Tauriel, he saw a woman scarred by her past who seemed to have somehow resisted the hatred and scorn that existed between dwarves and elves. They were a strange pair to be certain, but did he have the right to tear their bond apart?

He glanced at Bofur, who watched the pair with a quietly surprised expression on his face. He nodded, and lightly cleared his throat and started forward.

Tauriel heard the sound instantly and looked up. When she saw the two dwarves she pulled back from Kili and rose to her feet. Kili came to his feet beside her and she waited, fearing the worst.

Dwalin surprised her by looking at her first. "I want to thank you for saving the lives of my kin," he said to her with quiet dignity.

She nodded in acknowledgment, unsure what else to say. Dwalin struck her as tough, hardened by resentments built up over long years of experience. To see him here now, humble enough to give thanks to someone he had considered an enemy was not a small thing. She was surprised to realize that hearing Dwalin's words helped ease the raw edge of emotion that speaking of her family had brought to the surface. Even if only a bit, his words gave her hope.

"Has something happened?" Kili asked. "Why have you come?"

"Kili, it's Thorin," Bofur said, his lips breaking into a smile that lit his eyes even in the pale blue starlight. "He is awake."

Kili's breath rushed from his lungs. He looked from Bofur to Dwalin and back, and finally up at Tauriel with a smile growing on his face. "Go," she said, smiling in encouragement. She remembered the pain in Thorin's eyes when he'd believed Kili was dying, his plea that she save him. "He will want to see you. He will need to see you with his own eyes to be sure you are all right."

He took her hand and squeezed it between both of his. He looked up at her, hoping she could see in his eyes everything he felt for her. Love, gratitude, hope.

He left her there in the field, torn between wanting to stay with her and needing to see Thorin, needing to know that his uncle was truly going to be all right. He was comforted to know that Tauriel would be here in Dale, that she was not going to disappear if he closed his eyes or turned away. His thoughts turned fully to Thorin, and as the three dwarves left Dale and crossed the valley to the gates of Erebor, he wondered how he was going to convince Thorin to accept Tauriel as part of his life.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

The hallway was clogged with dwarves when Kili reached the sick room at Erebor. He ignored the speculative looks cast his way and shouldered his way through until he reached the door. Oin was there waiting for him.

"He's asking for you, lad."

"Why is everyone out here?"

Oin shrugged helplessly. "He said he wants to speak to you and Fili alone. He sent everyone else out to wait."

"Is he going to be all right?" Kili asked, battling a thread of guilt that he had not been here when Thorin awoke. He hated being torn between Tauriel and his kin. Especially now, when she felt close enough to him to share the story of her lost family. He wanted to make her smile, wanted to tell her he could be her family now. But any time he spent with Tauriel meant time away from Fili, away from Thorin. How was he supposed to reconcile these two parts of his life?

"He is weak yet," Oin said. "His body suffered tremendous wounds. By all rights he should not have survived Azog's attack, but I have never met a dwarf as stubborn as Thorin. I think he survived by sheer force of will."

"And Tauriel," Kili said. "Tauriel helped him."

"Aye, she did."

Kili opened the door and rushed into the room, then stopped in front of the cot where Thorin sat. He stared at the man who had been like a father to him for most of his life. There were cuts on his face that had not healed, and a weariness in his eyes.

"Thorin, I—"

Before he could work out what he wanted to say, Thorin wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him into an embrace. For a long moment they were silent, the three of them. "I failed you both," Thorin said.

"No," Kili denied immediately.

"Never," Fili said from beside his brother.

Thorin leaned back and looked from one to the other. His sister's children, but they had been like his own sons for as long as he could remember. He had watched them grow from boundless children into impetuous but strong and loyal men. There was nothing he would not do for them, no sacrifice he would not make, even unto the end of his life.

"I brought you on this quest with me, and I nearly brought us all to ruin."

"You could not have stopped us from coming," Kili said, and looked over at Fili.

Fili nodded. "We would have followed you anyway. You know that."

"All those many years ago I watched my grandfather succumb to madness brought on by the treasure he hoarded," Thorin said. "And then Azog the Defiler slayed him before my eyes."

Kili and Fili shared a glanced, and waited while Thorin went on.

"When we set out from the Shire I made a promise to myself. When we reclaimed Erebor, I would not let the same thing happen to me. I would not be taken by dragon sickness, and I would not watch my kin slain by Orcs." He looked at them both, his eyes haunted. "The madness gripped me before I knew it was happening. I betrayed you all. I doubted your loyalty, and I nearly brought about your deaths."

"Thorin, you fought the dragon sickness and won," Kili said. "You were strong enough to defeat it."

"The Orc armies were always going to come," Fili said. "The danger we were in was not of your making."

Thorin blew out a long breath. The guilt and battle-weariness he felt was still too great for him to believe he deserved their unwavering loyalty, but he was going to treasure it nonetheless, and he was going to prove to them, to everyone, that he deserved it.

They would build a new Erebor, and how they did it would define their legacy to their descendants. But what, he wondered, did he want that legacy to be?

Whatever it was, it would start with his nephews. He looked at Kili. "It seems you've created quite a stir in the last few days."

Kili sighed. Here it was, the conflict between heart and duty that had been raging inside him since that conversation a lifetime ago in the Mirkwood dungeons. He was afraid, so afraid, that he was going to be forced to choose between Tauriel and his kin. And how could he do that? How could he give up either, when they both felt so vital to him?

"Thorin...I can't apologize for how I feel. I feel alive when I'm with her. I know that we all have reason to hate elves, but…Tauriel is different. You have to see that." There was pleading in Kili's eyes as he looked at his uncle. "She would not have come here to help us if she was like the others. I hate Thranduil as much as you do." More, he thought, now that he knew the story of Tauriel's lost family, and how much finding her place at Mirkwood had meant to her. "But Tauriel is not like him. You have to know that."

Thorin saw the passion and the pleading in Kili's eyes, and it worried him as much as it cheered him. Cheered, because here was his nephew passionately defending what he believed in. This was not the immature dwarf who had set out from Bag End. This was his youngest nephew grown into a man. But he worried as well, because while he had obviously matured, Kili's recklessness was always close to the surface. And loving an elf…was that not the height of recklessness for a dwarf?

"I remember the day Smaug came here," he said. "I remember our people fleeing in panic, in terror. Dale was in ruins, and there in the distance Thranduil sat with his army, doing nothing but watching us suffer. We pleaded for help and he turned away. Took his army and went back to his kingdom. We were left to wander, to scrape out a living and whatever dignity we could manage. Yes, I despise Thranduil." He took a deep breath now, remembering the old hatred, the old fear. Remembering the pain of fleeing from his rightful home and the uncertainty of life in exile.

He looked at Kili. "I have to ask myself now, would I rather have died than owe a debt to one of Thranduil's elves?" When Kili opened his mouth to protest, Thorin held out a hand to stay him. "It is a question I have asked myself many times in the years since we were forced to flee this place. But I look at the two of you now and I have my answer. Your lives are worth more than my hatred."

Kili held his breath. "Are you saying that you support my relationship with Tauriel? That she is welcome here? Could you find a place for her here?"

Thorin shook his head, wishing he could give Kili what he was seeking. "I cannot do that."

Kili's heart dropped, and he frowned at Thorin. "But—"

"Kili, you must understand. As King I have to find a balance between my own desires and the needs of our people. Even if I can admit that she has done more for us than I ever imagined an elf would, if I walk out there and tell all of our kin that Tauriel has a home here, it could start a revolt. We have only just regained our homeland. We need time to heal from our wounds, time to rebuild this place, restore it to the glory it once held."

"I will not walk away from her," Kili said. "I can't."

"I know you believe you love her—"

"I don't believe it, I know it. And I am not afraid for everyone else to know it. She has earned our gratitude."

"And she will have it." Thorin gripped Kili's shoulder, hoping his nephew could understand the conflict taking place inside him. "This is not an easy path you are choosing," he said. "You may win some supporters, but there will still be those who think you a fool for this choice. You have to be prepared to face that."

"I am not as young and foolish as I once was," Kili assured him. "I want to be a part of building a new legacy here. But do you want that legacy to include old hatred? Why not show the world we can move beyond that? Show them we can change."

"How do you propose we do that?" Thorin asked.

"We start by honoring our word to Bard. We give him the gold we promised him for his help. We help him rebuild Dale for his people. And we give Thranduil the jewels." Now it was Kili's turn to hold out a hand to stay Thorin's protest. "If we want the elves to leave us in peace, I think we have to. How can we rebuild our lives if we are under constant threat of attack from Thranduil? Give him the jewels so he will leave us be."

"And do you also hope that doing so will help Tauriel regain his favor?"

"No," Kili said. "She does not believe that would ever happen. She has accepted that her home is gone. We know what that feels like."

Thorin tipped his head in acknowledgment. He looked at Kili, so earnest in his conviction but yes, a little afraid at the same time. However much his young nephew had grown during their journey, Thorin knew he did not fully understand the threat of scorn he faced for continuing his relationship with Tauriel. But at the same time, Thorin understood unconventional friendships. More than once since awakening, his thoughts had turned to Bilbo. He would never have expected to make friends with a hobbit. A dwarf and a hobbit, he thought. A dwarf and an elf. This journey had conjured strange friendships, strange consequences they could not have anticipated at the outset.

"I cannot offer her a home here," Thorin said. "Our people are not ready for that. But I want you to go and invite her here, so that I may thank her formally for the aid she has given to us. We can give her that much."

Kili nodded. It was not all that he had hoped for, but he supposed it was the best he could expect. He had seen the resistance of the other dwarves already. Tauriel had warned him that this prejudice could not be conquered in a day. But this was a start, he thought. Thorin was voluntarily inviting an elf to Erebor, and that would mean something to the others. Little by little, they would come to see that she was different. It had started already, with Fili, with Bofur and Oin. The rest would eventually see her for what she was. They had to.

* * *

><p>The sounds of townspeople moving through the gates brought Tauriel to full wakefulness in seconds. She had slept under the portico just inside the city gates, not having wanted to move the chest of her belongings up to the tower she'd found the night before.<p>

She stood, stretched out the aches brought on by sleeping on the hard ground, and stepped out into the open.

"Da, we want to go with you," Tilda stated.

Bard stood near the gates with his children gathered around him. Several men walked through the gates and headed away from the city as Tauriel watched.

Bard ran a hand over his daughter's hair. "It is too dangerous, darling. You stay here with your sister and brother."

"I could help," Bain said, clearly not for the first time.

"I need you to stay here, look out for your sisters," Bard said with a hand on Bain's shoulder. "We will only be gone for the day."

Sigrid turned and saw Tauriel standing nearby. "Good morning," she said with a soft smile.

Tilda saw her, and the girl's eyes lit with pleasure, which baffled Tauriel just a little. "Tauriel!" The girl skipped over, looked up at her with avid interest. "I saw you kiss a dwarf yesterday."

Tauriel, smiling in response to Sigrid's greeting, froze, went blank for a moment. She opened her mouth, but found she had no idea what to say. She had been so wrapped up in Kili that she'd had no idea anyone was watching. She, who always knew what was going on around her, had let a little girl slip past her guard. She shook her head inwardly.

"Tilda," Bard said, his voice quietly scolding. "It is not polite to spy on your friends."

"I was not spying, Da. I was by the gates and I saw them. They were throwing knives, and then they kissed by the tree."

"Tilda, when you watch someone and they do not know it, that is spying." He pulled the girl against his side in an affectionate but exasperated hug. He shook his head and looked over at Tauriel. "I am taking some men back to what is left of Lake-town to begin salvaging what we can. We could use your help, if you are willing."

"Of course. Give me a moment." She went back to the portico, opened her chest and retrieved the sword that Feren and Elros had brought to her. She fitted the leather rig that would hold the sword in a sheath along her spine, and slid her daggers into place at the small of her back. She preferred a bow over a sword, but in the unknown environment of Esgaroth's ruins, the sword would be easier to carry.

"I apologize for Tilda," Bard said as they left the city. "She is a very inquisitive child."

"There is no need for apology," Tauriel said. "She is a lovely girl." The open affection might continue to surprise her, but she found herself fond of the girl, and in some small way felt herself connected to all of Bard's children after stopping the Orc attack and getting them out of the burning wreckage of Esgaroth.

A dozen or so men made the long trek through the valley and toward the lake, a couple of them pulling carts that had been salvaged from Dale. One rode a horse, the same horse she had ridden to Erebor. Tauriel wondered how much they would be able to save from the wreckage.

"If you do not mind my asking," Bard began when they took to the water, "why would King Thranduil banish you from Mirkwood? It seems to me he would value strong warriors in his army."

Tauriel was quiet for a long moment. There was a part of her that did not want to answer, but the people of Dale already knew she had been banished, so there was not much point in hiding the reason, she supposed. "I left Mirkwood without his permission," she said. "He saw that as a betrayal, and that is something he could not stand for."

"But such a harsh punishment when your actions saved lives…"

There was no humor in the slight upturn of Tauriel's lips. She remembered Thranduil telling the Orc they had captured that he did not care if Kili died. "If he had known that I left Mirkwood not just to hunt down an Orc pack but to save Kili's life, his punishment likely would have been harsher."

"Yes, you cannot live in these lands without knowing of the rift between elves and dwarves." Bard shook his head. "You have a connection to both now. Tell me, will Thranduil regroup and come back to Erebor if he does not get what he wants from the dwarves?"

"Likely, yes," Tauriel said. "Although Kili is going to do his best to convince Thorin to not only give Thranduil what he desires, but to give you and your people what was promised to you."

"There are rumors that Thorin Oakenshield is dead, or near death."

"He was near death," Tauriel confirmed. "He awoke only last night."

"And will this dwarf of yours be able to convince him to reach into his treasure hoard to ensure peace?"

"I do not know." Tauriel thought of Thorin as a difficult man, one scarred by old wounds and hard to predict. He had lashed out at her in anger, but he had also risked his own life to ensure the welfare of his nephews. She knew from Kili that he had been taken by dragon sickness before the battle, and did not know what sort of scars such a thing could leave on a person's soul. "I hope he can."

The ruins of Esgaroth were haunting when they reached the town. Charred shadows and skeletal remains of what had once been shops, homes. Lives. Though the smoke had long since dissipated, the air still smelled of burning. It was different, so different than it had been when she had come here in the dark, Tauriel thought. The night had hidden the sheer scale of the devastation, as had her own emotional nightmare.

The small procession of boats was quiet as they rowed their way deeper. They were somber, mourning the loss that was sharply glaring in the cold and hazy winter sunlight. Tauriel thought she smelled snow on the air, though she hoped it would hold off until this grim business was completed.

Many of the waterways were clogged with debris, and going was slow. "Be careful, be vigilant," Bard warned everyone. "Spread out, and salvage anything we can use. The long winter is only beginning."

Bard eased their boat to a stop several minutes later, and they both climbed out onto the walkway outside his former home. There were scorch marks on the walls, but the fires had somehow avoided the building before burning themselves out.

Tauriel stood still, frowning, looking all around, and Bard stopped when he was halfway up the staircase. "What is it?"

She thought of Erebor's treasure hoard, and the possibility that Kili would not be able to convince Thorin to dip into it to aid the people of Dale. She shook her head. "As we were rowing through the town, the night the dragon came, we were hit and nearly run over by another boat, a barge overweighted with gold. I suspect the large man with the elaborate robe onboard it was none other than the so-called town master."

"Fleeing to safety with the wealth of the town," Bard said bitterly. "No doubt he will have a comfortable life wherever he goes, if brigands do not find him and take it from him first."

But Tauriel was not so sure of that. "They were carrying so much weight they were barely afloat. Moving slowly." She brought her memory of that night back into her mind. She tried to picture which direction the gold-laden barge had been going. Tried to visualize the movements of the dragon. But she did not know the town well enough. She needed a better vantage point.

She looked up toward the roof of Bard's home. With a nod to herself, she hurried up the rickety steps. She gripped the railing and leaped up onto it, then reached for the edge of the overhanging roof and swung up onto it. She climbed the slope of the roof, nimbly avoiding the large holes the attacking Orcs had dropped through.

The height gave her a panoramic view of the devastation. Her breath caught. The destruction was nearly complete, so stark and colorless under the hazy gray of the sky. And yet there in the distance, on the other side of the lake, was the green of Mirkwood. The good green that had not yet succumbed to the spreading darkness. Her home.

Or at least it had been.

She looked away. There was no use longing for something that was no longer hers. She had a purpose now, to help the people of Dale rebuild. And she had Kili.

She wished for him suddenly, and wondered what he was doing. She wondered at Thorin's condition, and when she would be able to see Kili again. She supposed things would be different now that Thorin was recovering. He would lead the effort to rebuild Erebor, and how he led his people would color the entire area. The demands on Kili's time would be greater, likely making it harder for them to spend time together.

She shook her head. She needed to focus on the task at hand. She had possessed a great focus once; deserving the rank of captain in Thranduil's guard had demanded it. She could not forsake that skill now that the landscape of her world had changed. She needed her focus, perhaps even more than she had before, because now she did not have an army of elves to back her up.

She turned her attention back to scanning the ruins. She concentrated on the waterways, and retraced the path they'd taken that night, as best as she could remember it. She located what she thought was the spot, or near to it, where their boat had collided with the gold-laden barge. But she could not see far enough down the waterway to see if any evidence of its passage had been left behind.

She looked to her left. The structure next to Bard's home was still partially intact. If she could make it to the portion of the roof that still stood, she would have a clear view down the waterways and into the open lake. She stared at the charred, partially caved-in expanse of wood and slowly backed up along the length of Bard's roof.

"What are you doing?" he called up to her from the walkway below, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of her.

Instead of answering, she took a deep breath and ran swiftly to the edge, pushed off from the balls of her feet, and leaped across the expanse. She landed and felt the charred wood begin to give way beneath her feet, so she pitched herself forward and rolled twice until she came back to her feet. She let out another breath and took in her newly unobstructed view.

And she saw the prow of the barge emerging from the water at an odd angle.

Bard had gone back inside his home and was gathering clothing and supplies when Tauriel dropped back down onto the walkway and went inside. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "You could have fallen through."

She shook her head. "I found your golden barge, but you are going to have a difficult time recovering any riches left behind."

Bard frowned. "And why is that?"

"Because it was driven to the bottom of the waterway when the body of the dragon fell on top of it."

The work of recovering anything useful from the wreckage of the town was arduous and went on throughout the day. Aside from Bard's home and a few other structures that had survived relatively unscathed, there was little that could be salvaged. The mood was somber as they headed away from Esgaroth and back toward the shore. Tauriel felt the loss almost as keenly as the rest of them. She had never seen that sort of total devastation before. The chilled winter air was not the only reason she felt cold.

She looked up as they neared the shore, and her breath caught. Kili stood on the shore, watching the approach of the boats. She hadn't realized until that moment just how much she had needed to see him after the long and strenuous day. Her hand drifted to the pouch at her waist, and the rune stone still tucked inside.

When they hit the shallows she hopped out and helped Bard drag the boat up onto the sand. And then she went to Kili. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I came to find you, and they said you had gone to Lake-town. I was there as well. I watched it burning." He looked toward the ruined town in the distance and shrugged. "I waited for you to come back."

Her lips tipped up in a shaky smile. She walked a short distance down the beach and sat down on some washed-up debris. She looked up at him. "It looks worse in the daylight. The wreck and ruin of it. There is no life there. I spotted the body of the dragon, where it fell in one of the waterways when it died," she added.

He stepped up to her, took her face in his hands. She closed her eyes when he tipped his forehead to hers, then simply wrapped her arms around him and held on. "I have lived more than six hundred years, and I have never seen the like," she murmured. "And then I saw Mirkwood in the distance."

He brushed the backs of his fingers gently down her cheek. She looked up at him. "However long it takes, we will all rebuild. We will find our places in this world."

Tauriel leaned in and touched her lips to his. For all his youth and claims of recklessness, there was a streak of compassion and wisdom inside him. They would all rebuild, but she had needed to hear the words aloud. The images of Esgaroth's wreckage were burnt deep into her, but here was Kili, good, alive and whole. Here was a man who loved her, and proved to her that though she had lost a great deal since leaving Mirkwood that last fateful time, she had perhaps gained even more.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"I have never known you to be afraid."

Tauriel and Kili sat around the small fire they'd built under the portico with stones and brush gathered from the field. Snow had been falling lightly for a time, leaving a dusting over the ground. But the winds were calm, so it was as though a blanket of quiet was being tossed over the world.

"I am not afraid," she argued.

"Then why not come tonight? Thorin does not wish you ill. He wishes to thank you for all you've done for us."

"And the others? Dain Ironfoot in particular seemed to wish I would jump from the mountain."

Kili winced. "Dain is brash, yes, and at times outright rude. He thought to lead Erebor when it was unclear if Thorin would wake up again. He could have done it, though perhaps not in a way everyone would have liked. He is Thorin's cousin, and a warrior of some renown amongst our people."

"And hatred of elves runs deep in him, I think."

Kili knew it was truth and did not try to refute it. He was angry with Dain for his intractable stance, and wondered if he would counsel Thorin against giving the jewels to Thranduil. He wanted peace, and he didn't want his own people to be an obstacle to getting it.

"It does," he said. "But not everyone feels as he does. Bofur and Oin, they see you as you really are. And Fili. My brother will stand by me, by us, even if he does not understand what we feel. Even Dwalin, who is one of the most stubborn dwarves I've ever known, is starting to come around. And I think Thorin may surprise everyone once he speaks with you. I really do."

Tauriel sighed. Deny it she might, but she knew it made her a coward to delay going to Erebor to face Thorin. But she could not do it tonight, when her trip to Esgaroth had brought unexpected emotions to the surface. And try as she might to push them down, to deny she felt them, the stillness of the night was bringing them back.

"I told myself it did not matter," she said. "I told myself not to think about it, because there were more important things that needed my attention. But now, in the dark…" She drifted off, staring into the flames.

Kili frowned. "What…"

"I saw it today," she said. "Standing on the roof of one of the few structures left standing in Esgaroth, and in the distance I could see Mirkwood." She looked up at him, her eyes luminous and sad. "I tell myself it does not matter. I tell myself that I have enough in my life. But I saw it today, and I was reminded how close I am to the home I can no longer touch. I miss Mirkwood, Kili. I miss my home. And here in the stillness that is harder to forget. I do not want to face Thorin while my thoughts are consumed with Mirkwood. That is why I want to wait."

"Do you want me to go?" Kili asked, thinking that she seemed unbearably sad and lost, and he could think of no way to ease this pain.

"No," she breathed, looking over at him. "I will feel sad from time to time when I think of Mirkwood. I will mourn its loss. But when I am near you, when I look at you, I remember why I left Thranduil's halls to begin with, and I do not regret. That choice brought us together. It gave us a chance to throw daggers and watch the stars together. How could anyone regret that? I want to watch the stars with you for a very long time to come."

She leaned in, kissed his lips lightly, then rested her head on his shoulder. For a time they sat in the quiet of the falling snow, the crackling of their little fire the only sound.

Kili ran his hand up and down her back, drawing absent patterns with his fingertips, offering what little comfort he could. He knew what it felt like to be cut off from one's rightful home, as he had said to Thorin, but truthfully he and Tauriel were at opposite ends of a scale of sorts. He, with his home reclaimed after a lifetime of never laying eyes on it, and she, her home lost after a lifetime within its borders.

The same sort of pain, but at different steps along the journey to peace.

"If you could go anywhere," he began, and knew she was listening even though she did not move, "anywhere in Middle Earth, where would it be?"

Tauriel stared into the flames. "When I thought you were gone I asked myself that very question. Where would I go? I thought of the forests around Ered Luin, or Eryn Vorn. I think Lord Elrond would welcome me at Imladris, or I could have gone to Ithilien, even further away. When I thought you were lost, all I wanted to do was get away."

"I am not sure Elrond would welcome me and my kin back anytime soon," Kili said lightly.

Tauriel lifted her head and looked at him, curiosity edging out the sadness in her eyes. "You have been to Imladris? What could you have done to earn Lord Elrond's displeasure?"

Kili smiled, glad to see her sadness begin to ease. "Dwarves love a good feast," he said. "Songs and dancing and merriment when we can get them. The elves gave us food that night. I seem to recall Bofur climbing on top of a table and playing a tune. Food may have been thrown about, though not in the quantity that we consumed. Oh, and there is the small matter of the bath we all took in one of the larger fountains scattered around."

Tauriel's mouth dropped open. "You bathed in Lord Elrond's fountain?"

Kili nodded, enjoying the memory. "It was a brief bit of revelry in the middle of a very long journey."

"Indeed," was all Tauriel could think to say, but at the same time could not hold back a smile. "I think sometime I would like to hear the entire tale of your journey from the beginning."

"I will tell you," he said. Because all of it, the good and the bad, had brought him to her. And that was a tale worth remembering.

* * *

><p>The morning dawned cold but clear. The snow of the previous evening had been light, and the horse Tauriel had borrowed once before was able to maneuver easily across the valley.<p>

Tauriel had dressed in her long winter cloak, her daggers sheathed under the cloak at the small of her back, with a smaller pair tucked into her boots. She did not expect to need them, but she never went anywhere without some sort of weapon.

The trek did not take long, and soon she was approaching the gates of Erebor. She slowed the horse to a stop and hopped down, then ran a hand along the animal's back, over its mane. She told herself not to be nervous and walked slowly toward the ruined gates, where several dwarves either stood guard or finished clearing rubble.

"Thorin Oakenshield is expecting me," she said when she stopped in front of them, but before anyone could answer, a familiar and welcome voice sounded from just inside.

"Tauriel."

Kili came toward her, a smile on his face. He took her hand and kissed the back of it, bringing an answering smile to her own lips. The dwarves around them were quiet, watching, wondering. "Come with me," Kili said.

She had been here only days ago, but she remembered little of the inside of Erebor. Her thoughts at the time had been too consumed with urgency and fear. But now she paid attention as they walked through the halls, and she was awed by the towering size of it. It was a world away from the living caves of Mirkwood, but there was a different kind of power here in the soaring columns and ancient carvings.

Evidence of the dragon's destruction and long occupation was everywhere in crumbled stone and piles of rubble, but there were already signs of rebuilding in the cleared ground and groups of dwarves working and planning. She recognized Dwalin as he carried large stones to a damaged section of wall, and acknowledged Bofur's wave of greeting with a nod. The friendly gesture relaxed her a little, as did a noticeable reduction of the hostility she'd felt the last time she was here.

It was still there, hanging in the air, but it was a little less potent than it had been before. She probably had Kili to thank for that, she thought. She had learned already that he could be relentless when he was fighting for something, and it was one of the things she loved about him.

Instead of taking Tauriel up to the room where she'd healed them before, Kili took her in a different direction. He took her into a vast hall with a solid golden floor that Tauriel could not help but gape at.

"It was not always like this," Kili told her. "Thorin says there was once a giant gold statue of Thror there at the end of the hall, and he and the others melted it down in an attempt to kill the dragon before it left the mountain and came to Lake-town."

"It must have been a very large statue," she murmured.

Up ahead of them, sitting on some rubble between two of the many columns lined up along either side of the golden floor, were Thorin and Fili. They stood as Tauriel and Kili approached, and for several long minutes there was silence in the hall.

Thorin and Tauriel took each other's measure. Tauriel thought Thorin looked weary but strong, pride riding his shoulders as naturally as his cloak. Thorin in turn thought he saw determination and something heavier, maybe grief, behind Tauriel's carefully blank expression.

"I was cruel when you were here before," he began, and when Tauriel opened her mouth to respond he held up his hand to stop her. "I saw your grief on Ravenhill, and I believed if it was real you could be convinced to come here and save my nephews. I knew you would face scorn from many here and I did not care."

"If fear of scorn could stop me from saving the lives of good men, then I would not deserve the gift of healing that was bestowed upon me."

"And still, I was purposefully cruel after all you did for my kin. I said cruel things in an attempt to drive you away."

"You were dying," Tauriel pointed out. "Do you think I hold ill will for anything you said in that room? You were willing to sacrifice your life to save your family. I think as such a few cruel words can be forgiven."

Thorin looked away with a frown and a shake of his head. "I do not understand you," he said. "I have heard even the venerable Elrond of Rivendell express his dislike of dwarves, and yet here you stand claiming that my deliberate cruelty meant nothing to you."

"Perhaps it is because I know what it is to face the reality of losing your family," Tauriel said, and Kili squeezed her hand in silent solidarity, because he knew of what she spoke. "Or perhaps it is simply that when we met I saw something the rest of my kin refused to see."

She looked over at Kili. She had certainly seen something in him that had changed the way she saw the world around her. Would she have dared pit herself against Thranduil if not for her feelings for Kili? Would she have gone after the Orcs if she had not believed they would lead her to Kili? She had long grown weary of Thranduil's insular philosophies, but she did not know if she would have dared take her own path without Kili.

"Whatever our pasts," Thorin said, drawing her out of her thoughts, "whatever animosity exists between our people, I asked you here today because I owe you my thanks. For saving the lives of my nephews, and I am told for saving mine as well."

"I did what I could," she said. "It was not much." There had not been much left in her by the time Thorin collapsed, she remembered. In fact, she could barely remember kneeling over him on the floor in between the two cots. Her strength had been sapped, and her memories of those moments were dark.

"But it seems that it was enough." Thorin stood before her, pride in his stance, and held out his hand. "I thank you for your efforts to save my family."

For reasons she could not entirely explain, her heart beat faster when she reached out and clasped his hand with hers. It felt like a beginning, to be standing in Erebor clasping hands with the King Under the Mountain. This was the world she wanted, with cooperation and respect between their people. She tried to imagine Thranduil standing here in her place and could not. Even the battle-weary Thranduil she'd seen on Ravenhill was probably far too stubborn. But in the moment it was hard not to imagine what peace between the two kingdoms might be like.

When Thorin stepped back Fili held out his hand. "I thank you for protecting my brother when I could not."

Tauriel took his hand but only nodded, her words clogged in her throat. Acceptance after banishment, after rejection, was a very powerful thing, she discovered. "I could not have done otherwise," she managed to say.

"In that vein, I have a favor to ask of you," Thorin said. "A favor that could greatly help my people, but may also put you at some risk."

Tauriel looked over at Kili, then back at Thorin. "What sort of favor?"

Thorin reached behind him and retrieved a small chest, which Tauriel had not noticed before. He held it in front of him and lifted the lid. Tauriel's breath caught, her eyes widening as she looked down at the contents. "The White Gems of Lasgalen," she murmured. "Every elf in Mirkwood has heard of them, but I never thought to lay eyes on them myself."

She reached down and gently lifted an elaborate necklace that sparkled like starlight. After a moment she placed it back on its bed of loose stones and looked at Thorin.

"Opinion is much divided on what should be done with these," Thorin said. He glanced at Kili as he closed the lid of the chest. "There are those who believe that giving this chest to Thranduil will help keep the peace between our people. But there are others who believe that the wrongs done to us by Thranduil over time outweigh any potential for peace."

"I believe he will come back here for these eventually," Tauriel said. "More of your people may come here by then to replenish your armies, but Thranduil is stubborn and persistent. He will come for these, and there will be more fighting, more death."

"If this decision had been posed to me at the outset of this journey, I would have said Thranduil could rot. When he held us prisoner in Mirkwood, he claimed to offer me his help in exchange for these jewels. I turned him down," Thorin said, neglecting to include the insult he had offered to all elves as part of his refusal. "Things have changed now. There has been enough loss here. I want peace, and a chance to rebuild. You know those lands. What I would ask is that you guide my chosen messengers through so that the spell that lies upon the forest does not take hold of them, so that if there are more of those accursed spiders they will not fall prey to them. And so that if they encounter Thranduil's soldiers, they will have a chance to deliver the gems without being harmed."

"Who are your chosen messengers?" Tauriel asked.

"I will send Balin and Dwalin," Thorin replied, thinking of his strongest diplomat and one of his strongest and most loyal fighters.

Kili immediately shook his head. "No," he said. "If anyone is to do this, I will do it, and Fili will come with me." He looked over at his brother, and received a nod in confirmation.

"Kili, the two of you nearly died only days ago," Thorin said.

"So did you," Kili pointed out. "I have been back and forth to Dale more than once since then. We have both helped clear rubble so that we may begin to rebuild this place. Tauriel healed our wounds, and if you wish to send her back Mirkwood, then she is not going without me. We are strong, Thorin." He did not add that part of his insistence came from the fact that only last night he had sat next to her while she spoke of the sadness of missing her homeland. If she was to face the sadness—and the risk—of going back there again, then she would do it with him by her side.

"I would not risk the two of you again so soon," Thorin told him.

"But you would risk her?" Kili pushed. "Only moments ago you were thanking her for saving our lives, and now you are asking her to risk Thranduil's wrath to benefit us all. If she goes, I go."

Tauriel schooled her face into placid lines to keep from showing the pleasure that Kili's defense brought to her.

Thorin frowned at Kili, but had to admit that he was not surprised by his nephew's insistence that he be the one to take the chest to Mirkwood. He looked back at Tauriel. "If I send Fili and Kili with the chest, will you do this for us?" _Will you keep them safe?_ was the question left unspoken.

Tauriel nodded to herself. She thought of Feren and Elros, and the chest of supplies they had brought to her in Dale. "I believe Feren has taken over as captain of the guard," she said, mostly to herself. "If we could make contact with him, I believe he would let us come and go unscathed. But carrying such an offering…we must be cautious. Thranduil has guards watching Mirkwood's borders. We will stay to the fringes; they will alert Feren, who can carry the chest to Thranduil, and there is no reason they should not allow us to leave." _As long as they left before Thranduil knew she was there._

She looked at Thorin. "Yes, I will do it." Because whatever risk there was in going back to Mirkwood, there was more risk in keeping the gems from Thranduil. She wished Legolas was still at Mirkwood, because she had no doubt that he would look out for her, but she had to believe that if Feren and Elros held sympathy for her still, then there would be others.

Thorin inhaled deeply and looked at both of his nephews. Young, reckless, but brave and strong and proud. They were why he was doing this, he reminded himself. "Tomorrow we will begin our push for a lasting peace in these lands. We will give Thranduil his precious gems," he said with only a little sneer in his voice, "and we will also honor our word to Bard and the men of Lake-town. They have lost at least as much as we, and we will give them what they need to rebuild. We did not regain our home only to forfeit our honor."

Fili and Kili felt tremendous pride in that moment, and knew that Thorin had fully and completely beaten the dragon sickness that had claimed him.

Tauriel herself felt a strange combination of happiness, anticipation, and fear. She hoped for peace, and believed that returning the gems to Thranduil could help bring it to elves, dwarves, as well as the men of Dale. But fear of returning to Mirkwood lingered at the edges of her emotions. She had to push it back, had to remember what was at stake, she told herself. And to do so all she had to do was look down at Kili.

He smiled up at her, and she was vaguely aware of Thorin and Fili leaving them alone in the echoing quiet of the hall. Tauriel stepped over and sat on a large fallen stone, and Kili came to stand in front of her.

"How much risk are you really taking, going back there?" he asked.

"Peace is worth any risk we might take." She leaned forward and touched her lips to his. "We are making progress already. Thorin would not have walked away just now if he was not beginning to accept the idea of you and I. And if Thorin accepts us, then perhaps more of your people will begin to follow. We are going to give Thranduil what he was ready to go to battle for. And then we will live our lives."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Tauriel stood at the edge of the tower she had taken as her own space and looked toward Erebor. She could see them crossing the valley toward Dale, Kili and Fili, Bofur and Dwalin pulling some kind of cart behind the horned mountain goats that they rode.

She watched them approach, her hair blowing in the cold breeze. She hoped that the dark clouds lingering on the horizon were not a poor omen for the day.

She turned away from the edge and stepped over to her chest of supplies. She had enlisted a pair of townsmen to help carry it up to the tower upon her return from Erebor the previous night, and now she opened it to retrieve her sword.

She was taking all of her weapons with her. She was privately terrified at the thought of drawing a weapon against her own people, but she had promised Thorin that she would keep Fili and Kili safe, and she planned to do that.

Moments later she jogged down the tower steps and began winding her way through the narrow town streets. She paused only when she spotted a familiar young face. "Bain," she said. "Where is your father?"

"He went to the old marketplace, to begin seeing about repairs."

"I need you to find him for me, ask him to meet me at the main gates. Tell him it is important."

"What—" Bain responded, but Tauriel was already moving off, eager to intercept the dwarves before anyone realized what they were carrying with them. She trusted Bard, but she did not know any of the other townspeople well enough to know if they would try to take some of the gold for their own.

"It will be safer this way," Dwalin was arguing when she reached them just outside the gates.

"Just the three of us," Kili countered. "That is the deal we made with Thorin."

"Wood elves are dangerous, Kili. You need more than one set of eyes looking out for you."

"They will have two," Tauriel said, stopping beside Kili. "Each other's and mine. I have lived in those forests, with those dangerous wood elves, for more than six hundred years. I can tell you that the larger the group, the slower they move through the forest. The faster we do this, the safer we will all be."

Before Dwalin could line up another argument, Bard came through the gates.

They all turned their attention to him. Dwalin stepped forward, the dwarves' appointed spokesman. There was pride in his stance, a pride that came from long years of struggling for his rightful place, and from fighting beside his kin.

"We dwarves of Erebor are honorable men," he began. "Thorin is an honorable man, and he would be here himself were he not still recovering from his battle wounds."

"The last I saw him," Bard said, "he declared his desire for war. There was no compromise in him."

"Dragon sickness was a danger from the first moment we stepped inside the mountain. It was a powerful lure, not easy to resist." Dwalin glanced over at Fili and Kili. "That Thorin was strong enough to fight it, that he overcame it in the midst of battle when the need was dire, and led his people to victory shows his strength, his courage. And here today he shows his honor."

He stepped over to the cart and pulled away the rough woolen blankets that had disguised two large chests. "You helped us when we were in need," Dwalin said. "Your people have suffered greatly since then. We hope that this can begin to make amends in some small way."

Bard opened the lid of the first chest and saw that it was filled to the brim with gold. He breathed deep. In the back of his mind he had been waiting for the moment when Thranduil returned here with his army, looking for his cooperation in a new battle against the dwarves. But this, now…was it the beginning of peace?

"Dwarves are known to be great craftsmen," Bofur said when Bard closed the chest. "We would offer our help where we can, rebuilding this town."

Bard nodded to himself, glanced up at Tauriel. She was caught between two worlds, he knew. Caught between her own people who had rejected her, and between this dwarf she loved and his people. In a way he was in the same position, his people strategically placed between two traditional enemies. The Master was gone, and somebody had to lead his people. And whether he liked it or not, whether he had planned it or not, his people now held him in a position of leadership.

"There can be no rebuilding without first having peace," he said. "I believe it is safe to say that those are the things we all want. Peace, rebuilding. I accept your offering on behalf of my people."

Dwalin grasped the hand Bard held out and shook it. When Bofur stepped up to shake Bard's hand in turn, Tauriel and Kili shared a satisfied look. Peace, they both thought. A chance.

"And Thranduil?" Bard asked, looking over at Tauriel. "Will we have peace from Mirkwood?"

"Thranduil will have what he wants," Tauriel said, glancing at Fili, who carried the chest of gems in a worn satchel on his back. Nobody looking at him would guess that what he held was so precious, which was exactly their aim. "We are leaving for Mirkwood now, and if all goes well, these lands will have peace by the time the sun sets again."

Bard nodded slowly, looking off into the distance, toward the ruins of Lake-town, and Mirkwood beyond. "May luck be with you on your journey," he said. "May luck be with us all."

* * *

><p>"It was not our fault," Kili said with certainty as they rowed away from the shore and began to cross the water toward the charred ruins of Lake-town. "How were we to know there were trolls there? And that they could be so quiet as to steal our ponies out from under our noses?"<p>

"You said you found a troll hoard," Tauriel said. "The name speaks for itself."

"There was no sign trolls had been there recently," Fili said. "We believed it to be long abandoned and forgotten."

"Clearly it was not."

Kili turned and looked at her, trying for an indignant expression. "You find it funny that we were captured and almost eaten by trolls?"

She schooled her face into placid lines. "I am trying to picture it, that is all."

"You are laughing," Kili complained. "You think we cannot see it, but we can."

She only smiled at him. "Did you get your ponies back uneaten?"

Kili huffed out a breath and tried to look upset, but when Tauriel glanced at Fili, he was shaking his head with a smile on his lips. "You have to admit, brother, it was a strange situation. And we got out of it with neither ourselves nor our ponies eaten."

"I admit nothing," Kili insisted, but he turned away quickly, and Tauriel caught a hint of a smile on his face.

The light mood they had been striving for quieted as they rowed even with the wreckage, the cold wind whipping up off the water only adding to the desolation of the landscape. None of them could forget the terror of rowing through the waterways as the town burned down around them. They could not forget the cries of the townspeople as they were overcome, or the fear that they themselves may not escape the fires.

They were somber as they rowed around the edges of the wreckage toward the open water that would lead them to Mirkwood's shores.

"Do you think they will rebuild this place?" Kili asked. "Not just Dale, but Lake-town as well?"

"The entire town is destroyed," Tauriel said. "It would take vast resources to rebuild both places."

"Will they resume trade with Mirkwood?" Fili wondered.

"Thranduil had no quarrel with the men of the lake," Tauriel said. "Although resuming trade as it was would require more time and effort now, given that Dale is a good distance farther away than Esgaroth." She sighed, her eyes scanning the wreckage as they passed. "I imagine they will resume trade when they can, whatever the difficulties. They will need the resources Thranduil can provide."

It was with relief that they passed around the edge of the ruined town. Seeing it in the light of day only strengthened Fili and Kili's resolve to set things right. And that started with traveling into the wilds of Mirkwood to give Thranduil his precious gems.

Kili looked up at Tauriel, but she was looking ahead, her face stoic, her shoulders stiff. Most would look at her and think her cold, unfeeling. But he was coming to know her well enough to know that behind that quiet exterior was a storm. There was so much inside her. Love, fear. Loss. Hope. And a terrifying courage and selflessness. If she was wrong, if there was nobody left amongst her people who she could trust, then there would be no peace for them at the end of the day. Thranduil would have the gems, and perhaps he would leave Erebor alone, but the three of them would not leave Mirkwood.

He could see it all too easily, being taken before Thranduil as trespassers. They would be back in their former cells, and Tauriel…she would either share a cell next to them, in her former home, or Thranduil could simply order her killed for betraying his orders and defying her banishment. Kili was not sure which was the crueler option.

Tauriel knew all of this, he thought. And still she risked it, for his kin, for the men of Dale. For him. He vowed to himself that when they were done with this, when they had peace and the winter passed and the rebuilding had begun, he would take her somewhere far away. He would take her to a forest where it was wild and green and she could run and climb and be free.

The picture he created in his head brought a touch of a smile to his face.

But the smile did not last for long.

* * *

><p>Tauriel was watchful as they rowed ashore. They left the boat in a small cove, where hopefully it would remain hidden until they returned. She remembered something Legolas had said when they rode for Gundabad days ago. He had told her that Thranduil had doubled the number of guards watching Mirkwood's borders, and that could bode ill for them if they were not careful.<p>

"Keep your eyes sharp and be cautious," she warned them. "I do not know how many amongst the guard are still my allies."

"How could Thranduil fault us when we are here to give him what he wants?" Fili wondered. "Why would he not let us leave when he sees that we are here to give him the gems he so desires?"

"The two of you escaped his dungeons, and I no longer have a right to be here at all. Thranduil is a man of unpredictable moods," she said. "He could decide to be generous and let us leave, but it is more likely that he would take the gems and leave us in the dungeons to rot. We will be much safer if we give the gems to someone I can trust. Someone who will take them to Thranduil and let us leave without a fight."

"And is there such an elf?" Kili asked. "After all that has happened, can you trust any of them?"

"We need to find a man called Feren," Tauriel said. "I believe he is Thranduil's new captain." She looked at Kili. "The carved chest I have in Dale? Feren brought that to me, without Thranduil's knowledge. And that is after he saw me draw a bow against my king."

Both dwarves froze.

"Wait. What?" Fili stuttered.

Kili stared at her, his eyes wide with incomprehension. "You drew your bow against Thranduil? When? I thought you carried this one because your own was lost in battle."

"It was…in a way." She sighed, not wanting to relive that scene in Dale, when she had been only a few breaths away from losing her life to Thranduil's blade. "It was in Dale, in the midst of the battle. Legolas and I had only just returned from Gundabad to warn everyone of Bolg's oncoming army, and Gandalf the Grey told us you had gone to Ravenhill. The same direction Bolg's army was marching toward."

She turned slightly away from them, the terror of those moments echoing in her mind. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It was over, she reminded herself. The Orc armies were defeated, and the dwarves lived. "Thranduil does not like to concern himself with troubles outside his own borders," she continued. "He had already lost many men fighting Azog's forces in the valley. When I found him in Dale, he was preparing to take what was left of his guard back to Mirkwood. I stood in his path. We…the two of you, Thorin…we could not have fought the Orcs on our own. Everyone would have been slaughtered. All would have been lost. And I could no longer stomach living in a world where we pretended that what happened outside Mirkwood's borders did not matter. So I stood in his path and would not let him walk away. I drew my bow against him, and he shattered it with a swing of his sword. That is how I lost my bow."

Fili and Kili were utterly silent for long moments. They knew of course that she had defied Thranduil to help them, but neither had suspected just how far she had gone. How much she had risked.

"Feren was there that day," Tauriel said to break the silence. "He was with Thranduil, and he witnessed everything. And still he brought the chest to Dale. That is why I believe he will take the gems to Thranduil and let us leave."

She took them into the forest, keeping as close to the edge of the tree line as she could. It would take longer this way, but her intent was to circle around as close as she could get to the gates at the Forest River, where the dwarves had made their escape in the empty barrels. Once they reached it they would have a straight path back down the banks of the river, and easy tree cover nearby should they need to retreat quickly.

She spotted guards here and there, but nobody she was sure of, so she stayed quiet, kept Fili and Kili out of their sight, and kept moving.

Snow began falling lightly and they took to rockier ground to keep from leaving obvious footprints. Worry wound its way into Tauriel's mind, an instinct that told her their luck was not going to hold. She sensed elves nearby, more than just a solitary guard or two. She signaled Fili and Kili and ducked back behind the cover of a few trees and some heavier brush.

"What is it?" Kili whispered.

"Elves nearby. A number of them. Give me the satchel. I want to hide it until I know we can trust them."

Fili and Kili shared a quick glance. Fili slid the satchel from his shoulders and handed it to her. She slung it over her shoulder. "Stay down, stay quiet," she warned. "Do not let them see you."

"Where are you going?" Kili asked in a whisper.

"To hide this where they will not find it. The gems will be our promise of safe passage." She turned and ran without another word, her footsteps light and soundless. She was quickly swallowed up by the trees and disappeared from sight.

Fili and Kili looked at each other, hunkering down behind the cover of the brush and fighting a shiver. Mirkwood had brought them nothing but danger so far. They were not facing an Orc attack this time, but the elves could pose just as much danger.

Soundless seconds ticked by into minutes, and they began to think that Tauriel had been mistaken. They were both convinced that the only reason they had been so easily captured before was that they were suffering from the effects of the spell the lay upon the forest. But today they had come from a different direction, with Tauriel as their guide, and no such spell had taken hold. Kili wondered if Tauriel had perhaps been overly cautious due to fear of returning to her former homeland.

Only seconds later he realized that she had been right after all.

Restless, he rose to his feet and turned, only to find an arrow inches from his face. He took a step back, looked up to see a dark-haired elf with his bow drawn back, arrow poised to fly. Kili gripped his bow tighter, but did not have room to draw an arrow of his own. "Fili," he murmured.

Fili rose, and the brothers stood side by side as a half-dozen elves aimed their arrows. Kili glared, while in his mind he thought, _where is Tauriel?_ Fili quietly drew one of his many hidden daggers, as if he could fight off the elves on his own.

"This is interesting," one of the elves said. "Two of King Thranduil's former prisoners, returned to reclaim their former cells."

"We have no intention of going back there with you," Kili said defiantly, thinking only to buy time, to draw out the confrontation until Tauriel returned.

The elf raised an eyebrow. "Do you think the two of you can fight us? You will go where we tell you."

Fili glanced to his right as the elves moved to fence them in against the heavy brush. There was nowhere to run, no easy way out. He gripped his dagger tight.

"I wonder what Thorin Oakenshield would pay for your release," the dark-haired elf said. "That is, if Thranduil sees fit to ransom you. I will personally recommend that he let you rot in repayment for all the damage you have caused." The elf took a menacing step forward and aimed an arrow directly at Kili's heart.

"Thranduil will decide what is to be done with you. Now move, if you do not wish to bleed."

Before anyone could so much as take another breath, there was a swift rush of air, and the arrow the elf had aimed at Kili snapped in two. Heads whipped up as Tauriel dropped down from a tree above them, rolled once, and came to her feet between elves and dwarves with her bow drawn and ready.

"_Farn!_" Tauriel ordered. She held her bow steady, her face calm and cold as stone. "Lower your weapons."

"You? You would dare come back here?"

"We came here for one reason only. For peace between elves and dwarves. Nobody wants another battle. Today, we can have peace. Where is Feren? He is your captain now, is he not? Bring Feren here now, and there will be peace in these lands."

"We no longer take orders from you. We are taking these dwarves to Thranduil. He will decide what to do with them. We will give you one chance to walk away, which is more than you deserve. Take it now, or you will join your friends." A pair of elves stepped forward.

Tauriel adjusted her bow a fraction, feeling Kili and Fili tense beside her, their own weapons at the ready. "If you take one step closer, Thranduil will never get what he wants."

"You have nothing to give him."

Tauriel inclined her head. Clearly the man in front of her was not one of her remaining allies. She glanced at the other elves in the small clearing they stood in. She could not take them all on, not without risk to Kili and Fili, and beyond that she had no desire to fight her own kin. So she would use another tactic instead.

"I have the White Gems of Lasgalen."

Every elf nearby, both seen and unseen, froze at her words. Tauriel kept her eyes steady on the man in front of her. "The gems are a peace offering to Thranduil from Thorin Oakenshield," she continued. "Bring Feren here, and I will hand them over. The three of us will leave this forest unharmed, and Thranduil will have what he was ready to go to war for."

"You are lying."

Tauriel shook her head. "Why would I come back here and lie? The dwarves of Erebor and the men of Dale only want peace to rebuild their lives. I have no other reason to risk coming back here when I am not welcome. We only want peace."

"These lands belong to Thranduil. He decides who comes and goes. You had your chance. Now you will explain yourself to him, and see if he shows you mercy."

"I have explored every bit of this land for hundreds of years. You may take me to Thranduil, and he may send out an army of elves to search, but you will never find the gems on your own. And I will not give up their location without a guarantee of safe passage. Ask yourself now what will curry more favor with Thranduil. Dragging me before his throne, or taking him the gems."

"I know what happened in Dale. I know what you said and did to your own king. You betrayed us all, and for what? A dwarf? Thranduil would never agree to let you walk away from here."

_You saw him in Dale_, Tauriel thought, _but you did not see him on Ravenhill_. She did not wish to face Thranduil again, but she did not think his actions could be so easily predicted.

They stood at a standstill, bows aimed at each other, with tension and threat in every breath, when a murmur began. Tauriel flicked her gaze upward when the words reached her ears.

_Hîr nín… Hîr nín, we thought you had gone…_"

And when he stepped into view, Tauriel's eyes widened in shock, and her bow jerked in her hands.

"_Legolas._"


End file.
